Biden signs bill providing $52B in subsidies to US semiconductor industry News
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Biden signs bill providing $52B in subsidies to US semiconductor industry

US President Joe Biden Tuesday signed the CHIPS Act of 2022, which provides $52 billion to boost the US domestic semiconductor industry.

The act authorizes the expenditure of more than $200 billion to promote domestic semiconductor production. However, only $52 billion is immediately appropriated as a result of Biden signing the bill.

The act also establishes a US Treasury fund to carry out its provisions. It provides $39 billion in manufacturing incentives and $13.2 billion in research and development and workforce development. It also provides a 25% tax credit for investments in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and production.

In response to the signing, US semiconductor companies announced new investments. For example, micron announced a $40 billion investment in memory chip manufacturing. Additionally, Qualcomm and GlobalFoundries announced a partnership that includes $4.2 billion to manufacture chips.

At the signing, Biden stated:

Fundamental change is taking place today — politically, economically, and technologically — change that can either strengthen our sense of control and security, of dignity and pride in our lives, in our nation; or — or change that weakens us so that people are left behind, causing them to question whether or not the very institutions — our economy, our democracy itself — can still deliver for them, for everybody.

 

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

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On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.