Sanders Files Amendment to Limit $76 Billion in ‘Corporate Welfare’ for Microchip Industry
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday introduced an amendment that would impose restrictions on the billions of dollars in federal subsidies and tax credits that Congress is poised to hand to the profitable U.S. microchip industry, which has been lobbying aggressively for the handouts.
Sanders’ proposed changes to the CHIPS Act, which cleared a key procedural hurdle in the Senate Tuesday evening, would prohibit companies that receive subsidies under the bill from using the funds to buy back their own stock, offshore U.S. jobs, or crack down on unionization efforts. The senator argues that no-strings-attached giveaways to the microchip industry would amount to “corporate welfare.”
“If private companies are going to benefit from generous taxpayer subsidies, the financial gains made by these companies must be shared with the American people, not just wealthy shareholders,” Sanders said in a floor speech. “In other words, if microchip companies make a profit as a direct result of these federal grants, the taxpayers of this country have a right to get a reasonable return on that investment.”
The latest version of the CHIPS Act, which now clocks in at 1,054 pages of legislative text, comes with an overall price tag of around $250 billion, tens of billions of which would be used to subsidize U.S. semiconductor manufacturing. Fresh tax language included in the bill increased the benefits to the microchip industry from around $52 billion to $76 billion.
The approval of such subsidies would be a major boon for companies like Intel, whose CEO took to the airwaves last week to implore Congress to do everything it can to pass the microchip bill.
“Do not go home for August recess until you have passed the CHIPS Act,” Pat Gelsinger, who was one of the highest-paid CEOs in the U.S. last year with a total compensation package of $179 million, said in a CNBC appearance on Friday.
In his remarks Tuesday, Sanders likened companies lobbying for passage of the CHIPS Act to “pigs at the trough.”
“They want more and more and more,” the senator said. “Their needs are insatiable.”
Originally published at Commondreams.org.
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