The "Section 174" tax change always gets brought up, but wouldn't that be kind of a "tail wagging the dog" explanation? Surely, if it's worth it for a business to hire talent, then it's still worth it regardless of some esoteric tax rule. Are there actually companies sitting there in their Hiring meetings saying "Gee, we really need to expand our business and hire some engineers--if it wasn't for this tax law, we'd be hiring!"