Bush touts proposals on technology issues

The president wants to encourage more broadband Internet connections.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tying high-tech innovation to prosperity, President Bush is using a speech in a swing state to address an election-year vulnerability: a sluggish job market that hasn't rebounded with the national economy.
In a speech today in Minnesota, Bush is urging Congress to slap a permanent ban on taxes consumers pay for high-speed Internet hookups called broadband. He also is touting proposals to make electronic medical records the norm and move hydrogen fuel technology from the lab to the showroom.
The White House released a 14-page summary Sunday night of the remarks Bush is scheduled to make to about 2,000 community college, business and other leaders attending the American Association of Community Colleges annual convention in Minneapolis.
After the speech, the president attends a Republican fund-raiser -- his fourth such event in a week -- at a private residence in Edina, a well-heeled suburb of the Twin Cities.
Bush is announcing that the Energy Department has selected partners for more than $350 million in new research projects to remove roadblocks to developing hydrogen fuel technology. The projects will address the problem of storing hydrogen on vehicles, increasing consumers' knowledge about hydrogen energy and making hydrogen fuel cells that are both durable and affordable.
Bush also is setting a goal for most Americans to have electronic health records within 10 years. Paper ones, he says, can lead to errors, inefficiencies and poor communication among doctors and nurses. To help reach the goal, the president is creating a national health information technology coordinator, a sub-Cabinet-level position.
Internet policies
On broadband, the name for the high-speed Internet connections over phone, cable and satellites, Bush said in a speech last week that America is "lagging a little bit." To encourage more broadband connections, he thinks users should not be taxed, and that the government should encourage competition among providers.
Bush has already signed into a law a two-year extension of the Internet Access Tax moratorium, which expired last fall. Now, he's calling on Congress to pass legislation that would extend the moratorium to broadband and make it permanent.
The House has passed a moratorium on user taxes levied against consumers who subscribe to broadband; the Senate is scheduled to address the issue this week.
Bush's eighth presidential trip to Minnesota, a state Al Gore won in 2000, comes as Democratic challenger John Kerry begins a three-day swing through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan to focus on jobs.
Unemployment
Democrats call Bush's job-creation record the worst of any president since the Great Depression. Since Bush took office, 1.84 million jobs have been lost, but after months of dismal job growth, the nation's employers in March added workers at the quickest pace in four years, swelling payrolls by 308,000.
Even so, the unemployment rate inched up a tenth of a point to 5.7 percent as more people were encouraged to start looking for work again but failed to find jobs.
"Bush has spent the last four years making empty but convenient promises rather than offering real solutions to create new and better jobs," Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for Kerry, said in a statement.
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