Political Quotes

“I come to the floor of the Senate today because we are poised to begin consideration of a really important piece of legislation. It is a plan to make America more competitive with China and a plan to bring good jobs back to America. I am talking about the bipartisan CHIPS Act, which includes reshoring semiconductor manufacturing to America and giving American workers and American companies the tools they need to compete and win. Let me give some background on why this legislation is so badly needed. U.S. dominance in what is called semiconductor manufacturing has dwindled for decades, and it is an economic and a national security concern. The U.S. has always led the world in chip design. We came up with this technology, but our share of the global chip manufacturing capacity over the past 30 years has gone from about 37 percent down to less than 12 percent today. As a result, we rely more and more on foreign countries for these essential chips; and in the past few years, the supply chain has not been reliable. You know that if you tried to buy a car recently--maybe even a washing machine--that you had to wait forever. Why? Because of the lack of semiconductors. These chips are just not available. We have all come to learn in recent years that semiconductors are the building blocks of everything--automobiles, cell phones, computers, household appliances, medical equipment, but also military systems and weaponry like the F-35.…”