In 1996, his administration formed the Texas Science and Technology Counsel. And around the same time, he passed a research and development tax credit in Texas that has helped his state draw high-tech companies to areas around Austin, Dallas and Houston. Internet taxation is a particular hot button for Bush and other candidates this election season because the three-year moratorium on it is set to expire in October 2001. But other candidates favor extending the moratorium while issues of interstate and foreign taxation are ironed out. And McCain favors a permanent ban on Internet taxation altogether.
Conservatives tend to favor extending the moratorium, perhaps indefinitely.
Businesses and politicians are caught in the middle. This is where Bush makes a strong statement in favor of easing export controls. In a written statement on his Web site, Bush says the current export control system is broken. But he does say that lifting encryption export rules would actually help law enforcement because weak encryption makes it easier for bad guys to intercept and decrypt private messages. DPS, a political steering committee under the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, D.C., will make recommendations to the new administration.