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Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

washingtonpost.com

261–270 of 489 posts

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody changes it because they know they are going to need it when they are the minority. Someone is gonna have to take one for the team and pull the plug on it, but I have little faith in our government ever doing the “principled” thing.

In 2013, Senator Harry Reid did it for federal judges (and not supreme court judges). At the time, McConnell told them that if they killed the filibuster for federal judges, he would kill it for supreme court justices. In 2017, he followed through on his promise, the orange fool appointed 3 justices, and now Roe v. Wade has been overturned. It would not be crazy to link the overturning of Roe to the 2013 decision of…

You're missing a piece of the puzzle actually - this goes back to George Walker Bush's presidency.

Democrats were being extremely obstructionist in GWB's federal judges. Republicans were considering throwing out the filibuster in response. Moderates from both parties got together and convinced their respective sides to back down and let judges get through while maintaining the filibuster.

In 2013, the tactic was pulled out by Republicans, and the Democrats used the - given the history of this tactic - unsurprising response after some time. Which, of course, led to 2017.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#262

It should be noted that the US decided not to extend the universal free school meals program, because it was "too expensive" at $11B. They also stopped the expanded and early payment of family tax credits, causing a double-whammy hit to poor families (then pile on inflation/food prices, and gas prices). But $50B to large monopolistic companies isn't "too expensive," and we can afford that . Unfortunately 52 senators…

> It should be noted that the US decided not to extend the universal free school meals program, because it was "too expensive" at $11B. They also stopped the expanded and early payment of family tax credits, causing a double-whammy hit to poor families (then pile on inflation/food prices, and gas prices). But $50B to large monopolistic companies isn't "too expensive," and we can afford that. That's misleading framing…

Ah, yes, the ol' write your congresspeople. Part of the problem is that for years they are running on these platforms saying they will help the people but end up not doing any of the things they say they are going to do.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#263
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we wanted local control then local towns/cities and counties would have the most power in our system. Instead things are reversed so smaller units of government have progressively less power. This makes sense because we want people to freely move around the country without encountering wildly different systems in every small town.

The name of our country is the United States . The state was intended as the primary unit of general government. Lots of land is outside of cities, and that can't be left ungoverned. And many counties have very few people, which make a lot of government functions impractical or insufficient. So states are still a reasonable unit after 250 years.

Alternatively the name of our country (well my former country but whatever) is the United States because existing colonial governments held significant power and weren't willing to unite if it meant they could be unseated from their cushy political appointments.

I don't think going by names is the best approach when we've got legal documents and statements to go by which are far less vague.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2013, Senator Harry Reid did it for federal judges (and not supreme court judges). At the time, McConnell told them that if they killed the filibuster for federal judges, he would kill it for supreme court justices. In 2017, he followed through on his promise, the orange fool appointed 3 justices, and now Roe v. Wade has been overturned. It would not be crazy to link the overturning of Roe to the 2013 decision of…

>In 2013, Senator Harry Reid did it for federal judges (and not supreme court judges). Yes, it was an extremely aggressive and short sighted thing for him to do. Most people don't know this story though, so it seems the Democratic Party gets a pass. Here's McConnell lambasting Reid about it in 2013. https://www.c-span.org/video/?316395-12/minority-leader-mcco... >It appears to have led to an era of unprecedented judi…

No it was a wise and practical decision. And the fillibuster has always been a stupid accident of the rules. It delayed civil rights bills by over a decade

Everyone knew that McConnell was lying and would have overturned the fillibuster on judges the second a supreme court fillibuster started. And we would have gotten the same extremist supreme court that laughs at restaint and takes away fundamental rights

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s almost as if that’s not the ideology at all!

Yep. In the US, a lot of the time support for one program or another is given not on the basis of ideology, but rather on the basis of whether or not the beneficiaries of a program provided commensurate, um, "campaign contributions". Pretty sure impoverished school kids contribute pretty much zero to political campaigns.

No post body was provided.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that how it's supposed to work? The state is supposed to pass laws that represent the will of its constituents. If the majority of the people living in the state are opposed to such a program, then they shouldn't have such a program. The scope of the federal government is supposed to be for coordinating cross-state stuff that states alone can't decide for themselves.

> The state is supposed to pass laws that represent the will of its constituents. If the majority of the people living in the state are opposed to such a program, then they shouldn't have such a program. You're ignoring that gerrymandering districts allow politicians to enact policies that don't reflect the will of the people.

> gerrymandering districts

But that would be even worse at a federal level because there are so many more districts to gerrymander, wouldn't it?

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#267
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A substantial number of those 52 senators oppose free school meals not because they're "too expensive" but because the policy itself (the government giving free food to children) is something they object to on ideological grounds. A much smaller subset of that group also oppose the government giving free stuff to industry, but in either case the cost is not what they're concerned about.

I’m all for healthy free lunches for poor kids. Is it really necessary to give free meals to all Palo Alto kids independent of financial status? https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2022/06/19/palo-alto-uni...

“Free lunch” isn’t free if one pays enough tax to cover its cost and other free things that they receive. Given there’s already progressive taxes, what’s the benefit of having income threshold for free lunch programs (or similar assistance programs)?

Universal “free lunch” is cheaper to manage, avoids filtering out children who needs it (but is filtered out due to administrative error or rigid rules), prevents children’s embarrassment, etc.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody changes it because they know they are going to need it when they are the minority. Someone is gonna have to take one for the team and pull the plug on it, but I have little faith in our government ever doing the “principled” thing.

In 2013, Senator Harry Reid did it for federal judges (and not supreme court judges). At the time, McConnell told them that if they killed the filibuster for federal judges, he would kill it for supreme court justices. In 2017, he followed through on his promise, the orange fool appointed 3 justices, and now Roe v. Wade has been overturned. It would not be crazy to link the overturning of Roe to the 2013 decision of…

It would be absolutely insane to link overturning Roe to Reid's decision. Everyone already knew McConnell would have gotten rid of it anyway the second a supreme court justice was fillibustered. Look at his actions in the Garland and Barrett nominations, compared to that getting rid of the fillibuster for judges is peanuts.

The only mistake Reid made was not to do away with the fillibuster fully

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#269

It should be noted that the US decided not to extend the universal free school meals program, because it was "too expensive" at $11B. They also stopped the expanded and early payment of family tax credits, causing a double-whammy hit to poor families (then pile on inflation/food prices, and gas prices). But $50B to large monopolistic companies isn't "too expensive," and we can afford that . Unfortunately 52 senators…

> It should be noted that the US decided not to extend the universal free school meals program, because it was "too expensive" at $11B. They also stopped the expanded and early payment of family tax credits, causing a double-whammy hit to poor families (then pile on inflation/food prices, and gas prices). But $50B to large monopolistic companies isn't "too expensive," and we can afford that. That's misleading framing…

This has nothing do with people’s civic engagement levels, and everything to do with money. The semiconductor industry gets a massive subsidy because they spend tens of millions of dollars on lobbying - impoverished schoolchildren get left to starve because they don’t.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#270

I can't help but conclude that this is too little too late. R&D isn't the problem, which is what this bill seems more focused on. The ability to produce affordable chips domestically at affordable prices is the actual problem. North America's first priority isn't access to bleeding edge tech. > The bill also includes about $100 billion in authorizations over five years for programs such as expanding the National Scie…

Even worse, it'll be some senator's niece and nephew who all of a sudden create a startup that "is just crushing it on the funding!"
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