The Biden administration has reached an agreement to provide up to $6.4 billion in direct funding for Samsung Electronics to develop a computer chip manufacturing and research cluster in Texas.
The funding announced Monday by the Commerce Department is part of a total investment in the cluster that, with private money, is expected to exceed $40 billion. The government support comes from the CHIPS and Science Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022 with the goal of reviving the production of advanced computer chips domestically.
“The proposed project will propel Texas into a state of the art semiconductor ecosystem,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on a call with reporters. “It puts us on track to hit our goal of producing 20% of the world’s leading edge chips in the United States by the end of the decade.”
Raimondo said she expects the project will create at least 17,000 construction jobs and more than 4,500 manufacturing jobs.
High-speed rail funding, semiconductor factory funding… Why the fuck is Texas getting these federal perks when they’ve been fighting Biden the entire time?
Neoliberal bargaining strategy…
Anyone that’s already “blue” you ignore, because they have no other options to vote for.
So you continually give preference to conservatives in the hopes you can pull some into the Democratic party. This pulls the Dem party more conservative and perpetuates the problem.
It’s pretty much why 1/3 of the country doesn’t vote, and the only time in modern history Dems ran a progressive campaign, we flipped a bunch of red states.
We can easily do that again, it’s not difficult. It’s just not the direction party leaders want to take the party. They’d rather lose elections than move left.
Everything I see in the news about how the dems are bending over backwards to please republicans leads me to believe that the senior democratic party members are genuinely just fucking stupid.
I guess that’s to be expected since half of them are like 300 years old, but it’s still really annoying to watch them just let democracy be destroyed for the sake of decorum.
It’s at least forty years of history. After Reagan ran the table in 84, the DNC caved utterly and completely and just about never recovered.
Just an endless stream of faceless, well coiffed men in khakis and oxfords blabbering about values or some shit. Such a pathetic run of losing that even against trump they dug deep and lost that one.
Important to specify how they caved - they capitulated to corporate interests, and started seeking bribe money in the form of political donations in return for political favors at this time.
Stupid, perhaps. But it’s important to realize they all live in the same bubble in DC, and thus experience the same groupthink. When Biden refers to his Republican colleagues as “his friends,” he genuinely means it. They hang out over food and happy hours, etc every day. They likely feel much closer bonds with each other than they do with their actual constituents back home.
This doesn’t fully explain why Dems are so bad at messaging and politics in general, but I think it’s a big contributor.
Our run by abunch of Republicans who ran as Democrats. Maybe they influtreded the party long ago and both are right wing. One just less so.
This is exactly how we got the Affordable Care Act over single payer. Dems wanted to appease Republicans and yet still none of them voted for it.
I suspect it was Samsung that chose Texas, and not the Feds.
The feds could have said something like, “consider Michigan and we’ll give you $6.4 billion.”
Does Biden have a shot to swing it blue? Haven’t kept up with voting demographics there.
I don’t think he does in the current climate.
Texas will secede the union and sink into the Gulf of Mexico before it becomes a democratic state.
Don’t get my hopes up.
Lol na, not a chance. Liberals who typically vote are middle class and if they could afford to leave Texas then they have. What’s left is poor democrats who can’t leave but don’t typically vote and if they do vote it’s for people like Bernie. They see Biden as Capitalist who couldn’t give a fuck about them so fat chance they are taking off work to vote for him.
To turn texas blue you would need an extremely progressive candidate and even Bernie wasn’t progressive enough.
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A bullet to Dallas, call it the Kennedy Express
Couldn’t call it that, Kennedy was a Democrat.
They’d name it Oswald’s magic bullet.
Can’t name it after a Democrat better name it after a communist instead
Like you aren’t wrong about this but also
It’s Texas, the chances they know more about Oswald than he shot Kennedy are pretty low. At the rate they’re going communism won’t even be in the text book
Ideally where funds are invested would be decided without fear or favor.
And Texas needs these funds more than any other state? I find that spurious.
Nah, I think partisan special treatment is exactly what we need more of. What could go wrong making eligibility for federal projects and funds contingent on the state being represented by the correct party.
Obvious /s.
Not by choice I’m sure. Kinda like our public school books. It’s a numbers and -hopefully-long game.
You can’t argue the differences if you behave the same way.
Well if you can’t trust “RealLifeLore” on YouTube, who can you trust?
Texas has a 5 cent return on every federal dollar it receives.
New Mexico, 40 cents.
https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal-government/
Maybe it doesn’t need more federal dollars if it’s such a paltry return.
Yeah, I definitely feel more comfortable trusting a random, terminally online Lemmy user who’s oddly concerned with one metric over the ton of diverse statistics provided in the video. One might wonder why you’re so skeptical about the channel.
Also, I don’t think New Mexico is your best go-to example (or you just don’t understand the data and thought “biggest number goodest”), since West Virginia for example has a return of 26 cents on every dollar, and since New Mexico is the second-most federally dependent state in the nation, providing the second least tax contribution in return for its federal funding in the nation. For every $1 it pays in federal taxes, it receives $3.26 in federal funding, so of course it’s going to have one of the highest local returns on the tax dollars it pays. In terms of states that actually contribute to the nation, New Mexico is one of the worst examples.
But hey, it’s blue right, and that makes it a good state, as opposed to Texas, which must therefore be bad in every conceivable metric in order for our tribalist, reductionist viewpoint to make any sense, eh?
I don’t agree with the way that Texas is currently being run economically, but that doesn’t change the fact that its enormous, booming economy provides a huge net surplus to the nation given its GDP, and that it therefore more than warrants this sort of investment from the federal government.
I didn’t bother reading past the insult.
I am a “terminally online Lemmy user” because I am very sick. I just got back from the Mayo Clinic a couple of weeks ago. I don’t get out much. I’m sorry that offends you.
I’m getting really tired of explaining this.
Yeah, why bother contributing to the conversation and potentially educating yourself when you can just fall back on getting offended and playing the victim instead!
The only reason I framed my comment the way I did was because of your flippant, entirely unjustified attack on RLL’s credibility, and therefore on me for being dumb enough to be so easily duped by them. I suppose I should be equally sorry that approachable, informative content offends you, but then, I’m not the one that insults people and then gets all offended when the energy I brought to the conversation is matched by my interlocutor.
Edit in response to your edit:
I’m getting really tired of explaining this.
Seems like this behavior of making intentionally antagonizing statements and then playing the victim is reoccurring behavior on your part then. Might want to take a step back and re-evaluate.
Once again, did not read past the insult. Not interested.
Not sure why I’m surprised at the hypocrisy. I’ll remember that the next time I try to engage in good faith with users like you.
3rd world countries have more reliable power grids than Texas. Texas the only state where you can just freeze to death if you have a few cold days because the power grid is so shit.
Third world countries definitely don’t, especially at Texas’ scale, but I get your point.
Even so, if Intel’s ok with the power distribution situation, I don’t really see how your comment is relevant to the thread.
You said it’s the most important and valuable state and I refuted that by saying they can’t even supply electricity to the people living there.
Sorry I didn’t circle jerk agree with you but it’s very relevant to the comment you posted.
That has very little real impact on Texas’ import or value, especially when events like the ones in question are incredibly rare. I’m happy to have a critical conversation about how Texas’ energy policy is hurting its citizens and is ultimately self-defeating, but even if Texas had widespread, daily rolling blackouts it wouldn’t change the fact that it’s demonstrably the most important and valuable state at the moment.
That’s like me arguing that bitcoin isn’t the most important and valuable cryptocurrency by pointing out how much energy it uses and how horrible it is for the environment - that’s also true, but has very little to do with the conversation at hand.
I mean you are just factually wrong about Texas being the most valuable and important state. Come talk to me when Texas is the is the 5th largest economy in the world like California. Come talk to me when Texas isn’t violating human rights.
Texas isn’t valuable or important and is on the verge of collapse as people are moving out in droves.
“Sorry I didn’t circlejerk” they sniff with superiority as they bravely parrot “blue state good, red state bad” in News@lemmy.world. Yet again, however, this conversation isn’t about which state is good and which state is bad - it’s about which is more important and valuable, and in both cases, the clear answer is Texas.
You’re correct that it’s not currently the largest state economy (Texas would be the 8th largest economy in the world), but you’re ignoring the fact that Texas’s economy and population is growing much faster than California’s (whose population is currently shrinking), which is the relevant metric here, fueled by its natural resource wealth, strategic position, and appealing location for both public and private investment. In the long term, Texas is currently significantly more valuable than California is, and is on track to eclipse its sister state in both economic size and population in the next decade or so.
That has nothing to do with whether this is a good thing or not, of course, but it is a demonstrable fact.
Come talk to me when Texas isn’t violating human rights.
Come talk to me when you can separate your performative moral outrage from a conversation it’s not even relevant to.
Texas isn’t valuable or important and is on the verge of collapse as people are moving out in droves.
Unfortunately, you being real, real mad at the big meanie red state doesn’t change the fact that Texas is seeing an economic and population boom that hasn’t been seen in the US in decades. And while it’s certainly possible that their deeply unpopular policies may inhibit this growth somewhat, that hasn’t been borne out by the data (yet).
I’m pretty sure Samsung doesn’t need that money
I mean, I’m as anti-corporation as the next sane person, but it’s not like this is just a gift to Samsung.
This is just a small part of the total costs for building This facility, which is going to be absolutely massive, and the vast majority of the money is coming from the private sector. In return the US gets and incredibly important resource that makes it less dependant of countries in East Asia that are either hostile to them or are at risk of having their facilities disobeyed by those that are.
That alone is worth fare more than 6bn, and doesn’t even begin to mention the economic benefits of such an endeavour.
You make good points
I mean, TSM already went “this isn’t gonna work” and “it’s not you, it’s me” on them…
Most of these are points in favor of US Goverment support for first-time homebuyers. Instead of helping Samsung, what if there was a fund to pay 10% of every first time homebuyer’s purchase?
House prices would go up even more.
Not 10%. Most buyers are not first time homebuyers. Most buyers already have property. That’s the problem.
The problem is lack of supply in such a bad way that any increase in demand is additional upward price pressure.
Except the most important point, which is to have domestic chip production facilities for the DoD.
The project is estimated to create 17,000 construction jobs (temporary, feels wildly overestimated as well) and 4500 manufacturing jobs.
If you just have that $6.4B to the 4500 who would get a permanent job out of it that would be $1.4million each, probably enough for them to retire.
But no we need workers so give that money to corporations that already have billions of dollars.
Then you’ve lost 6.4 billion and there’s no valuable commodity being produced
Thank you for calling that out. I just hope this doesn’t turn into another foxconn situation like in Wisconsin.
$1.4 mil is probably not enough for someone to retire unless they were only a decade away from retirement anyway. And let’s say one of these workers has a 30 year career at this factory that’s only $46k/year, which isn’t a lot, especially for a skilled worker. So if we assume and average wage for these jobs is $80k (probably an underestimate) then that’s only 17.5 years before Samsung pays put more to employees than it got from the government, and realistically these factories will be operating for many decades if all goes well.
And that’s ignoring both the construction jobs and the downstream jobs that would be needed to support 4.5k workers. As well as the money the government will make back on various taxes from both income and manufacturing and savings from procuring chips locally instead of shipping them.
And also massively ignoring the importance of domestic chip manufacturing which given the current state of things and potential future conflict could legitimately be the difference between that stops NATO losing a war with China. Which is the main thing this project is about and is worth so so so much more than 6bn
Need has nothing to do with it. The Biden admin is prepping for Taiwan to be taken by China. Throwing cash at Texas just helps with political messaging.
Yeah it should be going straight to Israel.
Private businesses making their own way in the world with no help from anyone else. Perfect example of capitalism working as it should…
Oh wait…
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Foxconn should have been a warning not an example.
Are you referring to the plant in Wisconsin where they used eminent domain to kick out a whole neighborhood full of families after secret backroom deals, gave them a guaranteed tax break regardless of them keeping their promises or not, and then act shocked when Foxconn did a 180 on the entire project and only hired a fraction of the promised amount doing low skill, low paying work?
Yes.
Anyone remember the Foxconn building deal during the Trump presidency? It was supposed to prop Republicans up in the mid-terms of 2018.
The GOP offered a $2.85 billion subsidy so Foxconn would build an LCD panel manufacturing plant in Wisconsin. Apparently the subsidy was in the form of tax credits. Trump calls Foxconn “8th wonder of the world” despite its cost.
The renovations never arrived. Neither did the factory, the tech campus, nor the thousands of jobs. Interviews with 19 employees and dozens of others involved with the project, as well as thousands of pages of public documents, reveal a project that has defaulted on almost every promise. The building Foxconn calls an LCD factory — about 1/20th the size of the original plan — is little more than an empty shell. In September, Foxconn received a permit to change its intended use from manufacturing to storage.
As far as I can tell (from skimming over a few recent news articles), they ultimately employed about 1000 people (7%-10% of what was promised). When negative reporting on the project ramped up, Republicans claimed that incoming Democratic governor Tony Evers tried to renegotiate the deal and blamed him. When that turned out to be a lie, Republicans pivoted to the more nebulous claim that Foxconn bailed because Wisconsin was unfriendly to business under its fresh Democratic governor.
This could be a great side-by-side comparison on how Dems vs. Reps handle such a project, but I doubt the average person caught in the news cycle still remembers Foxconn after nearly 6 years). 😅
Aren’t there even cheaper, lower wage states we can build these chips in? What about building the plant in Alabamistan, and having the cheap texas engineers flown in as needed?
Wow they get a Samsung factory and a bullet train back to back.
Way to help Ted Cruze and that little nazi governor. Wtf.
Hoping Texas becomes a purple state maybe
FUCK TEXAS.
Love corporate handouts.
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Socialism for the rich!
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