Joe Biden: Manufacturers Investing In America Again. Let's Make Some CHIPS!

Once again cleaning up Republicans' mess.

President Joe Biden went to Syracuse, New York, yesterday to talk up his administration's economic policies and to warn against what will happen if Republicans take control of one or both houses of Congress in the midterm elections. He spoke at a community college to mark Micron's 20-year plan to invest $100 billion in manufacturing computer chips in the US, following passage of the CHIPS and Science Act earlier this year. (It was honestly very cute when he leaned over dramatically to stage whisper "One hundred BILLION dollars" into the mic.)

Biden also touted yesterday's good GDP report showing the economy had grown by 2.6 percent, and also noted that while "it may not feel like it for everyone, people’s incomes went up last quarter more than inflation went up."

Hell, just this week we learned that the bottom 20 percent of Americans have an extra TRILLION DOLLARS in wealth and the next 40 percent have an extra TWO TRILLION, since Biden took office. Seems like people should know about that!

It was a pretty good speech; here's the full video:  

 youtu.be 

Biden noted that the Micron plant will run entirely on clean energy, and that it will create 9,000 permanent union jobs at the plant, plus "tens of thousands" more jobs across the full supply chain. He also pointed out the significance of investments by Micron's domestic and foreign competitors in ramping up computer chip manufacturing in the US, marking a turnaround in the industry:

Over 30 years ago, America had more than 30 percent of the global chip production. Thirty percent.

Then something happened, American manufacturing — the backbone of our economy — got hollowed out. Companies moved jobs overseas from the industrial Midwest as well as from the Northeast and manufacturing towns like here in central New York and upstate New York.

And as a result, today we’re down to producing only around 10 percent of the world’s chips.

Thanking Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) for his leadership in passing the CHIPS and Science Act, Biden said the legislation will "increase America’s share of global memory chips and production by 500 percent." He added that, in his conversations with the president of China, "I heard from Xi Jinping that he’s a little concerned about that. [...] As I told him, it’s not about conflict, it’s about competition. And we’re back in the game."

Biden framed the facility planned for Syracuse as a harbinger of optimism for American manufacturing, and reminded the audience that unlike that previous guy who bragged (ie, lied) about "saving jobs" at an Indiana air conditioner factory that soon closed anyway, Biden's economic policies are already showing results. 

“Biden: "The previous president made a string of broken promises in places like Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, where promised investments & jobs in manufacturing never materialized, but layoffs & shuttered factories did materialize. On my watch we've kept our commitments."”

— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1666903841 

The previous president made a string of broken promises in places like Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, where promised investments and jobs in manufacturing never materialized but layoffs and shuttered factories did materialize. On my watch, we’ve kept our commitments. On my watch, “Made in America” ... isn't just a slogan, it’s a reality. [...]

I’ve said from the beginning that my objective is to build an economy from the bottom — bottom up and the middle out.

An economy that rewards work, not just wealth.

An economy that works for everyone so the poor have a ladder up, the middle class can do better. And when that happens, the wealthy do very well. They don’t get hurt at all. They do very well.

You'd think more rich fuckwads would recognize that. Then again, when the tax cuts and subsidies go directly to the richest, it's a lot faster, without all that tiresome "everyone does better" stuff. Wouldn't it be more efficient to shut out those working and middle class people and transfer the wealth to the top?

Biden pointed out that unemployment is "the lowest it's been in 50 years," noted that gas prices are coming down, and called out oil companies for profiteering even as the price of crude oil has gone down. He noted that post-pandemic supply chains are running more smoothly, and took another shot at Trump, reminding the crowd that Trump planned so many "infrastructure weeks" that the term became a joke, while Biden and Congress actually passed a bipartisan bill — another of his "seriously, no joke" achievements:

Well, on my watch, we turned “Infrastructure Week” into the “Decade of Infrastructure,” [...] a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s roads, highways, bridges, railroads, ports, airports, water systems, high-speed Internet.

And the American people are seeing the benefits of this economy that works for them.

Families have more net worth today than they did before the pandemic. Fewer families are behind on their mortgages, their credit card bills than they were before the pandemic. [...]

More Americans have health insurance than before the pandemic.

And we’re doing everything we can to give folks just a bit — as my dad would say, just a little bit of breathing room.

After reviewing the healthcare savings in the Inflation Reduction Act — negotiated lower drug prices for Medicare, an annual $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket prescriptions for Medicare that starts next year, and the capping of Medicare co-pays for insulin at just $35 a month — Biden went on to note that for all Republicans' rhetoric about the dangers of debts and deficits, the federal budget deficit actually fell by $1.4 trillion this year, and that the tax measures in the IRA are projected to further cut the deficit by another $250 billion in the coming decade.

Biden then warned that all those benefits and more would be wiped away if Republicans retake control of the government, noting House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's vow to gut the Inflation Reduction Act. Pointing out that Republicans have basically given up on having an actual platform, Biden said the GOP nonetheless has committed to getting rid of the prescription drug cap, the insulin savings, the negotiated drug prices, and for that matter the $800 per year in savings on insurance premiums for folks using Obamacare.

On top of that, he said, Republicans still want to repeal Obamacare and return us to the days of people losing their insurance for having pre-existing medical conditions.

Worse, Biden said, Republicans have already committed to cutting Social Security and Medicare.

Now it sounds like, you know, “What’s — there’s Biden. That’s a typical Democrat saying Republicans are after Social Security.” This is the one thing they’ve said out loud. (Laughter.) They’ve written it down on pieces of paper.

Somewhere, the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler turned on his computer to write another "fact check" complaining that just because Republicans talk about policies that will endanger Social Security and Medicare, it's somehow not a "plan" — besides, theysay they don't intend to eliminate either!

Biden closed with another upbeat assessment of US manufacturing, noting that whenever he talks to business interests, they agree that when the federal government invests in new tech and manufacturing — as with the CHIPS Act, and the IRA's investments in clean energy — industry follows, and it's good for both the economy and for national security.

And it creates jobs, and it creates industries. It demonstrates we’re all in this together. And that’s what today is all about. I’ve never — and I mean it sincerely — I’ve never been more optimistic in my life about America’s future. I mean it sincerely.

As a closing argument for the midterms, it was a pretty good speech. Time to get to work and keep the progress going, huh?

[ White House / AP ]

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