As it backs a bill designed to help the United States compete with China, the Biden administration also has an eye toward keeping Midwestern voters in its camp with promises to drive manufacturing jobs and eliminate outsourcing.
President Joe Biden held a meeting last week with state lawmakers, Cabinet members, and critical industry executives in an effort to back the Bipartisan Innovation Act, the name given to a pair of bills that have passed the House and Senate since Biden took office.
BIDEN QUIETLY FOLLOWS IN TRUMP’S FOREIGN POLICY FOOTSTEPS
“Just last week, in my State of the Union message, I said we’re seeing the revitalization of American manufacturing, especially in the industrial Midwest,” Biden said during the meeting. “Our economy created 432,000 new manufacturing jobs in America since we took office, and today, companies are choosing to build new factories here in the U.S., when just a few years ago, they would’ve built them overseas.”
Rather than the internal combustion engines or rubber tires of old, Biden wants to boost semiconductor manufacturing specifically, saying the U.S. used to produce 40% of the world’s semiconductors but now barely manages 10%. A shortage of the tiny devices has been a contributor to high inflation. The act would direct more than $50 billion in new funding toward the domestic research and development of semiconductors and other critical technologies.
There’s a strong Midwestern flavor to the Biden administration’s promotion of the measures. A background briefing the White House sent to reporters mentions creating good-paying jobs “in every corner of our country,” stopping the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, and how Intel is investing $20 billion to build a semiconductor megasite outside Columbus, Ohio, a figure it says would grow to $100 billion if Congress passes the bill.
The governors of Michigan and Indiana attended Wednesday’s meeting.
“Governors, I’m sure you’ll agree with Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, who said it’s time to bury the label ‘Rust Belt,'” Biden said. “The industrial Midwest today, you see something special is happening.”
Eric Holcomb, the Republican governor of Indiana, said his state is now the shiny buckle on the belt.
Keeping the Midwest in his corner is going to be crucial for Biden and Democrats going forward, argues Democratic strategist Brad Bannon.
“The Midwest made Donald Trump president in 2016, and the Midwest ended his presidency by going for Biden in 2020,” Bannon said. “The Midwest makes or breaks potential presidents in the Electoral College.”
Despite the name, support for the legislation is not universal. It’s a combination of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, which passed the Senate by a 68-32 vote, and the America COMPETES Act, which passed the House 222-210 along party lines.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, introduced his own twist on the latter bill’s name.
“The America Concedes Act is Democrats’ desperate answer to their string of self-created crises,” he said on the House floor following the vote. “While it contains some provisions supported by Republicans, Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi is holding these good ideas hostage by using this 3,000-page bill as a vehicle for her party’s far-left agenda.”
It’s unclear when a compromise version of the legislation may emerge from Congress. Republicans charge that federal funding to spur manufacturing is too much like China’s own highly centralized economy, calling for regulatory rollback instead. Democrats counter that federal leadership is needed if the U.S. is serious about strengthening its manufacturing output.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“The reality is the Republicans blindly hate anything that has to do with a national economic policy,” said Bannon. “The problem is, in the real world we live in, for a country to be competitive internationally, you need a national economic policy whether Republicans like it or not.”
