Sanders Warns Congress Is Working ‘Behind Closed Doors’ on $50 Billion in Corporate Welfare
Sen. Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor Wednesday to criticize fellow members of Congress for working to approve billions of dollars in handouts to major corporations as the country is embroiled in a worsening cost-of-living crisis, a deadly pandemic, and an intensifying climate emergency.
“What is Congress doing right now, at a time when we face so many massive problems?” asked Sanders, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee. “The answer is that for two months, a 107-member conference committee has been meeting behind closed doors to provide over $50 billion in corporate welfare with no strings attached to the highly profitable microchip industry.”
“No, we’re not talking about healthcare for all,” the Vermont senator lamented. “No, we’re not talking about making higher education affordable. No, we’re not talking about making sure that young people can earn decent salaries when they become teachers. No, we’re not talking about leading the world in combating climate change.”
“We’re talking about giving $50 billion in corporate welfare with no strings attached—a blank check—to the highly profitable microchip industry”, he stated.
The legislation drawing Sanders’ ire is the long-stalled United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), a bill purportedly designed to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing—an industry that has been lavished with taxpayer subsidies in recent years—and ramp up investment in research and development.
As Politico describes it, the USICA “would shower the semiconductor industry with $52 billion of incentives to ramp up chip-making in America.”
Sanders, who voted against the Senate bill’s passage in March, has argued that the USICA should contain safeguards to ensure that taxpayer funding doesn’t go to companies that engage in union-busting, offshore U.S. jobs, or buy back their own stock. In May, Republican and Democratic senators voted down motions from Sanders that encouraged such conditions.
The progressive senator has also spotlighted a provision of the USICA that would approve $10 billion in NASA funding for moon landers, money that Sanders has warned could benefit billionaire Jeff Bezos. Sanders has urged lawmakers to strip the provision from the bill.
Originally published at Commondreams.org, written by Jake Johnson.