Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
>No it was a wise and practical decision. Well the Democrats just lost all chance of any new gun control and will probably have some gun control repealed. Not only that, they lost the power of Democrat controlled states to enact gun control at the state level and will have much of state gun control repealed. They completely lost the right to abortion at the federal/constitutional level as well. What did they gain for…
Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips
361–370 of 489 posts
Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips
#362Such a monumental scam and a gross theft from taxpayers. Companies making billions of dollars in profits don't need free money. I could be onboard with a subsidized loan, but handouts are not needed. FWIW, I work at a company that stands to benefit from this bill. Does the US need to secure reliable semiconductor supply chains free of China? Sure. This is not the most cost effective way to do it.
So what is the most cost effective way to do so? China's pouring hundreds of billions in subsidies into fabs. South Korea is pouring hundreds of billions in subsidies. Tariffs alone would only allow for domestic balancing of those subsidies but lose you the global market. So again, what would you recommend instead.
Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are some examples of legislation that has broad support among the voters adjusted for voting power, and is ignored by our representatives?
I hate to refer you to a search engine, look for any major issue where the population differs in opinion to the donor class. An obvious place to start is with healthcare, where even slight majorities of Republicans wanted it socialized (at least before 2016) but picking out issues is a waste of time. The vast majority of the public has no influence on public policy. The elite consensus becomes policy 100% of the time…
That's not what I asked. I asked for an issue supported by voters, not population. A lot of people have opinions, but not many people vote, which skews actual legislation. There's also a conservative tilt because rural voters have disproportionate power.
The populist "it's the elite and their money controlling legislation" sentiment doesn't seem to correlate with reality from what I've read.
On healthcare, the support of socialization is complicated. Voters are iffy depending on how questions are phrased, so it's not totally clear on exactly what they want. It seems something like the ACA was pretty close, but even that was very controversial.
For example, I know you can get very high approval for M4A, but if you phrase questions in a more partisan manner, approval tanks. Something along the lines of "Would you support government provided healthcare that would ban private insurance?" would poll terribly, even though they're both referring to the same policy.
Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
The point isn't that its one or the other, the point is that spending on social programs is much cheaper than national security programs and makes a more meaningful difference in more peoples lives. The point is that either-or is a false dichotomy, we can have good social safety nets and still have robust national security. The reason we don't have both isn't that we can't afford both, its that much of this country v…
Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
Doing it for everyone makes management simpler. I suspect it leads to better academic performance, too.
[0] https://www.schooldigger.com/go/CA/schools/2961004596/school...
Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
When middle class people use a government service, the quality goes up.
Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are some examples of legislation that has broad support among the voters adjusted for voting power, and is ignored by our representatives?
I’ll do you one even better. We have a two-chamber legislature, and here is a prime example of what that actually means. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2187 Would have allowed for professionals in a given field to be accredited to make investments related to their profession. Or to put it another way, you would no longer need to already be rich to use the tools that the rich use to get richer…
I'll have to look into it more though.
Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
I'm all for free public education for poor kids. Is it really necessary to give free public education to all Palo Alto kids independent of financial status? Snark aside, the answer is: it's much simpler to manage a program that offers the same thing to everyone regardless of income than it is to manage a program that has to work out who deserves it. And offering it to all avoids stigma.
Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips
#369This was what Andy Grove wanted - more investment in chip manufacturing. Good news. Grove was a visionary in many ways and his writing on this back in 2010 or so impacted my thinking. https://prospect.org/environment/andy-grove-trade-globalizat... In retirement, Grove became concerned about the decline of American manufacturing: When he was CEO, Intel not only performed its research and development in the United Stat…
> This was what Andy Grove wanted - more investment in chip manufacturing. He was also the former CEO of Intel, so you know, not exactly impartial on the subject.
Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips
#370It 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…
You just need an external enemy. in this case China. You can bridge consensus on all sides when there is a boogeyman that isn't another American.