WASHINGTON DC – A $52 billion package of incentives and subsidies to bolster US semiconductor manufacturing is far from dead, despite Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s threat to scuttle the legislation containing it in order to stall passage of President Joe Biden’s economic plan.
Democrats have multiple paths to get the chips money, which has broad bipartisan support, through Congress.
McConnell stunned Democrats on Thursday by tweeting he would stand in the way of the wider China competition legislation of which the semiconductor provision is a part so long as Democrats plan to use the partisan budget process to ram through a separate package of tax increases on the wealthy and corporations, incentives for green energy, and prescription drug price limits.
While the ploy is aimed at stopping the budget package, it comes as Republicans have also been pushing Democrats to abandon plans to add big-ticket spending items to the China bill, which has been the subject of closed door talks for months.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, in an interview with the Washington Post, called McConnell’s threat a mere “bump in the road” designed to increase his leverage in negotiations.
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