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posted by martyb on Wednesday June 09 2021, @01:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the sausagemaking dept.

Senate passes billions for tech in U.S. Innovation and Competition Act

The Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, formerly known as the Endless Frontier Act, Tuesday. The bill approves hundreds of billions of dollars in spending for science and technology at a range of government agencies, as well as $52 billion for chip manufacturing. The heavily debated and amended bill now heads to the House, where it faces an uphill battle against key Democrats who have, up to this point, vocally opposed it.

[...] Senators attached a slew of new provisions to benefit certain sectors of the tech industry, including appropriating $52 billion to boost chip manufacturing in the U.S. Another amendment would add $10 billion for NASA's lunar landing program, a provision Sen. Bernie Sanders called "welfare to Mr. [Jeff] Bezos," who owns the space company Blue Origin.

The semiconductor industry applauded the bill upon its passage. "Senate passage of USICA is a pivotal step toward strengthening U.S. semiconductor production and innovation and an indication of the strong, bipartisan support in Washington for ensuring sustained American leadership in science and technology," John Neuffer, CEO of the Semiconductor Industry Association, said in a statement.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar also managed to squeeze in an antitrust provision that would increase filing fees for large mergers.

The final bill includes a litany of oddball items vaguely linked to China — from a prohibition on the sale of shark fins to an exemption on country of origin labeling for cooked king crab. By the time it passed, the bill stretched more than 2,000 pages long.

The mad rush to stuff the bill full of tangential amendments was as good a sign as any early on that the law could actually pass the Senate. But it faces a bigger challenge in the House, where Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, who chairs the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, could block its advancement. Johnson has written publicly about her opposition to the Endless Frontier Act, arguing that it creates a "'shiny new object' that gets the attention of policymakers to the detriment of NSF's fundamental research mission."

Also at CNBC, The Verge, The Guardian, and USA Today.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 09 2021, @02:48PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 09 2021, @02:48PM (#1143533)

    It's all good until the plebes realize a dollar now only buys 70 cents worth of goods.
    One of the most evil and therefore popular for the govt aspects of inflation is that it makes it "possible" for the government to pay back (snicker!) its debts, so long as they force the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates close to zero. Due to inflation, you take in more (somewhat worthless, but high denomination) tax dollars, so you can easily "pay back" the debt (well, part of it) so you can borrow even more!

    This is how Third World governments operate, and people are stupid to think we can't crash our own economy this way.

  • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 09 2021, @03:18PM (3 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday June 09 2021, @03:18PM (#1143543)

    That sounds like a Ponzi scheme. They're not legal now, are they?

    (Sorry for the sarcasm / cynicism; inflation is pretty much a given in any even slightly free-market economic system, greed being a thing and all...)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 09 2021, @05:19PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 09 2021, @05:19PM (#1143597)

      There is low inflation (under 3% a year), and then there is oh shit inflation from Carter's presidency. The first is tolerable, the second, not.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 09 2021, @07:45PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 09 2021, @07:45PM (#1143666)

        It started under Nixon, due to the profligate spending on the lost Vietnam war and the space race.

      • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday June 09 2021, @08:07PM

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday June 09 2021, @08:07PM (#1143685) Journal

        then there is oh shit inflation from Carter's presidency...

        Guess you weren't around in '73 [youtube.com]

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..