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.

  • Flying Squid
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    923 months ago

    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?

    • @[email protected]
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      503 months ago

      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.

      • Ragdoll X
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        3 months ago

        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.

        • Optional
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          173 months ago

          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.

          • @[email protected]
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            123 months ago

            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.

        • @[email protected]
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          83 months ago

          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.

        • @[email protected]
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          43 months ago

          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.

      • @[email protected]
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        103 months ago

        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.

      • Flying Squid
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        173 months ago

        The feds could have said something like, “consider Michigan and we’ll give you $6.4 billion.”

    • Neato
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      73 months ago

      Does Biden have a shot to swing it blue? Haven’t kept up with voting demographics there.

    • @[email protected]
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      63 months ago

      As a Texan, who the fuck knows? Definitely wasn’t decided by plebiscite. I mean, seriously, a bullet train to Dallas?

        • @[email protected]
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          3 months ago

          Couldn’t call it that, Kennedy was a Democrat.

          They’d name it Oswald’s magic bullet.

          • @[email protected]
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            33 months ago

            Can’t name it after a Democrat better name it after a communist instead

            Like you aren’t wrong about this but also

            • @[email protected]
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              23 months ago

              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

      • Flying Squid
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        153 months ago

        And Texas needs these funds more than any other state? I find that spurious.

      • @[email protected]
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        -53 months ago

        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.

    • @[email protected]
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      23 months ago

      Not by choice I’m sure. Kinda like our public school books. It’s a numbers and -hopefully-long game.

        • @hakase
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          3 months ago

          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.

          • Flying Squid
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            3 months ago

            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.

            • @hakase
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              3 months ago

              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.

                • @hakase
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                  -43 months ago

                  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.

                  • Flying Squid
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                    23 months ago

                    Remember what you like. Just don’t expect to keep insulting people and get away with it if the mods notice.

        • @hakase
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          3 months ago

          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.

            • @hakase
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              3 months ago

              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.

                • @hakase
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                  3 months ago

                  “Sorry I didn’t circlejerk” they sniff with superiority as they bravely parrot “blue state good, red state bad” in [email protected]. 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).