GOP signals CHIPS Act not going anywhere

Technology

The Big Story

Trump's call to repeal CHIPS Act faces GOP scrutiny

Republican lawmakers say President Trump's call for Congress to "get rid of" the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act will be dead on arrival on Capitol Hill.

Republican senators said they’re willing to work with Trump to make some changes to the program, but they argued the money allocated to bolster microchip production in the United States is critical to national security.

They also point out the money has already been spent and there simply wouldn’t be the votes to repeal a law that passed the Senate and House with strong bipartisan majorities.

Democrats touted the law as one of the biggest legislative successes of the Biden administration, but it also received the backing of more than a dozen Senate Republicans and 24 GOP House members.

“I think reconstituting domestic manufacturing of advanced semiconductors is a national security and economic imperative,” said Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), who was one of 17 Senate Republicans who voted for the law.

Cornyn noted that “the whole purpose of this was national security."

“Because if there’s a disruption between Asia or Taiwan, to be more specific, and the United States, we would plunge into a depression and we wouldn’t be able to build advanced weapons or aircraft like the F-35,” he said.

Trump called the CHIPS Act “horrible” and urged lawmakers to scrap it when he spoke to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.

“Your CHIPS Act is a horrible, horrible thing. We give hundreds of billions of dollars and it doesn’t mean a thing. They take our money and they don’t spend it,” Trump said in a speech to Congress.

“You should get rid of the CHIPS Act and whatever is left over, Mr. Speaker, you should use it to reduce debt," the president added.

Read more in a full report from The Hill's Alexander Bolton.

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A solution to debanking?

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Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) on Thursday offered up a potential solution.

The Financial Integrity and Regulation Management Act seeks to tackle debanking by removing references to reputational risk for evaluating the safety and soundness of depository institutions, like banks.

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