The CHIPS Act Boondoggle (Courtesy of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo)
Another Flop From the Former Rhode Island Governor.
Feel free to check out my past work on my Substack and Medium blogs, which feature past takes on the 2024 election cycle and exclusive write-ups on US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, among other matters. Also feel welcome to reach out to me on LinkedIn with any ideas, comments, or questions.
Between this short post, and another one potentially in the works, this week could get a little hectic, so stay tuned.
By the way, check out my brother’s take on the latest in the local Mt. Pleasant High School controversies on Salzillo’s Two Cents. Thank goodness for Rhode Island Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green and Providence Superintendent Javier Montanez being on top of it all (Not!).
And just one more brief side note: a big push is coming up on the RI Tenants’ Bill of Rights. A few local news outlets will be covering this issue in the coming days and weeks.
But on to today’s business. This time, we are covering the latest in U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s record of missteps, mismanagement, and pro-corporate policymaking. Her department has now “boondoggled” the CHIPS Act (as The American Prospect so accurately coined it).
Imagine this: the CHIPS Act could really be a harbinger of innovative and creative industrial strategy—if it was implemented the right way. Forget the debates about “big government” or “small government.” With the CHIPS Act, what matters far more is the efficient and competent management of government staff and resources on the part of the US Commerce Department.
The United States is trying to bring back semiconductor chip manufacturing with $52 billion in funding. A lot of money to dole out. And Raimondo clearly wants to take the credit for such a monumental achievement. She was desperate to claim a national role in a landmark piece of legislation. She immediately jumped out there with her PR team to take the lion’s share of the credit for the passage of the CHIPS Act-when this specific legislative push was actually brewing as early as fall 2019 and spring 2020.
Yet here she can take credit for the latest CHIPS Act news—though not in a good way. Intel is apparently getting 1/5th of all the money for semiconductor manufacturing. But the real question is what did it take to get to that point. Intel’s CEO was one of Raimondo’s most frequent meeting guests going back to 2021. Was Raimondo championing this bill to gain favor with Intel’s CEO, perhaps even for her own future political ambitions? Sure sounds like it. And that was what she did with Rhode Island’s Commerce Corporation incentives.
More significant though, the Commerce Department will have to foot the bill for the funds spent on a massive $3.5 billion Intel facility for Pentagon chipmaking use. This controversial facility—as first reported by The American Prospect—will now get a lion share of the money from the CHIPS Act. It will swallow up resources that other smaller and maybe more deserving microchip companies will not be able to use. Despite all that, Intel is lobbying for even more money, slowing the construction of an Ohio microchip facility in the process. To make things worse, the reporting here resulted in the Pentagon pulling out of the grant. It is now asking Commerce to pay the bill in full.
Commerce Secretary Raimondo is bungling the use of the CHIPS Act for meaningful purposes, transforming it instead into Intel’s personal slush fund. But is this all really that much of a surprise based on Raimondo’s past history?
No. This is a story Rhode Islanders have heard before from her time in Rhode Island state government. Local businesses and communities get left behind, while high-powered lobbyists dictate the terms. No different now in the many Raimondo controversies (including in how the 2011 Pension Reforms are worsening employee attrition and recruitment problems amongst state police officers, firefighters, teachers, and government workers).
So what can President Biden, Congress, and the general public learn from all this? Well, one lesson is don’t take Raimondo at her word—or do so at your own risk. The Beltway understands this more and more every day. Raimondo’s shady track record in Rhode Island and Washington DC has shown them that she is not worthy of their trust. She has other interests in mind.
Raimondo has always been about personal resume-building, and presenting herself as a “rising star.” But her posturing has real-world consequences. Raimondo’s position allows her to be a negative influence on many critical policy fronts, and no amount of PR fiction can change that.
Commerce Secretary Raimondo’s real track record does not paint a pretty picture for real success of any kind, and her actions have been very costly for regular people and working families in Rhode Island and across the country. Her actions across the board (including now in cozying up to Intel) have raised even more questions than answers.
With that, feel free to comb through the recently released “Gina Raimondo Files,” which is only a baseline of what we know about the Commerce Secretary’s true record, and the reality she neglects to tell you:
The Full Record Of Us Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo
201KB ∙ PDF file
Gina Raimondo Ri Local Media Catalog
101KB ∙ PDF file