President Biden chopped through remarks before signing a $280 billion bill Tuesday morning to boost domestic semiconductor chip production and compete with China.
The 79-year-old president, who finally tested negative for Covid-19 on Saturday after contracting the disease on a rebound, touted the bill as a measure of national security and job creation between coughing up phlegm.
“It’s no wonder the Chinese Communist Party has actively urged US companies against it,” he said.
After the speech, the White House press office said Biden had tested negative Tuesday morning and Monday.
Biden first tested positive for COVID on July 21. He was taking antiviral treatment for the condition, Paxlovid, and tested negative on July 27. He then returned to the west wing masked, but suffered a rebound on 30 July with another positive test result.
“We are at a tipping point in our nation and around the world,” Biden said during a speech at the White House. “Today, fundamental changes are taking place, politically, economically and technologically, changes that can either strengthen or weaken our sense of control and security, of dignity and pride in our life in our nation.”
Biden was joined onstage by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who got all of her members on board to vote for the bill, Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who led the bill through the Senate. A number of lawmakers from both parties, cabinet secretaries and leaders in the electric vehicle and technology industries were spotted in the crowd.
At one point, after his remarks, Schumer walked down a row and shook hands with those on stage. He shook hands with the president and then moved on to others, and shortly thereafter, Biden extended his hand again, prompting Republicans on Twitter to wonder if the president had “forgotten” that Schumer had already greeted him.
Biden thanked Republicans who worked on the bill, including Sens. Todd Young, Ind., and Rob Portman, Ohio, who both crowded around the president as he signed the bill before apologizing for putting it “in.” difficulties”.
“Vice President Harris, Second Gentlemen, members of the Cabinet, White House team members, United States Congress from both parties, Majority Leaders, Senators Cantwell, Young, Portman, I don’t want to get you in trouble, but you’ve done a hell of a job. That’s a different story.
“We are at a tipping point in our nation and around the world,” Biden said during a speech at the White House
The President touted the $280 billion semiconductor chip bill between coughing fits
Biden finally tested negative for Covid-19 four days ago on Saturday
‘Probably just cost you something – my apologies. Many Thanks. Many Thanks. And along with Senators Cornyn and Wicker, who helped keep this bill on track, from start to finish in the House of Representatives.”
The bill passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate in late July.
The package includes $52 billion in funding for US companies that make computer chips and a 25 percent tax credit for companies investing in the market. It includes $39 billion for chipmakers to expand and modernize their technologies and $11 billion for the Department of Commerce for research and development. This includes an additional $81 billion for the National Science Foundation.
“America invented the semiconductor, but today it produces about 10 percent of the world’s supply — and none of the most advanced chips,” the White House said in a fact sheet accompanying the bill. “Instead, we rely on East Asia for 75 percent of global production.”
The US relies heavily on Taiwan for its supply of microchips, imports threatened by China’s creeping encroachments on island democracy.
Biden signs the CHIPS bill after it passes the Senate with 17 Republican votes
The bill will pump billions to boost domestic chip production and compete with China
“In fifty, 75, 100 years. People will look back on this week and now know that we met in this moment today. The law I’m signing, the chips and the science, is a one-time investment in America itself,” Biden said in his remarks.
The bill was supported by 17 Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and members of his leadership team, including GOP Policy Committee Chair Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and Sens. John Cornyn, R Texas and Rob Portman, R Ohio.
Immediately after the Senate vote, however, Sen. Joe Manchin announced that he had reached an agreement with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on a $739 billion reconciliation bill, the Anti-Inflation Act — a new iteration of the Build Back Better Act that Republicans passed unanimously had railed against it.
Schumer celebrates the bill ahead of Biden’s remarks
The House GOP leadership then lashed out in protest at Manchin’s announcement against the spending bill. Still, 24 Republicans voted with Democrats to pass the law.
Critics of the bill, including Senator Bernie Sanders, who voted no, viewed the industry tax break as an excessive subsidy to big tech companies. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi was able to unite even the House Progressive Caucus in support of the bill.
After the legislation passed, the White House announced that Micron would invest $40 billion in manufacturing memory chips used in computers and other electronic devices, and Qualcomm and GlobalFoundries announced a partnership to make $4.2 billion US dollars to expand microchip facilities in upstate New York.