From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   When Big Business Married Big Government   
   By Allysia Finley, March 26, 2023, WSJ   
      
   When liberals look back on the Biden presidency, they may hail its greatest   
   accomplishment as ushering in a new era of corporate government dependency.   
   Without fail, and no matter the industry, the administration has hooked   
   businesses on Washington    
   handouts while attaching conditions that put taxpayers and consumers on the   
   hook for leftist policy preferences.   
      
   The latest example is the banking panic. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act provided an   
   implicit taxpayer guarantee for the country’s largest banks. With Silicon   
   Valley Bank’s collapse, midsize banks are now arguing they’re also too big   
   to fail and lobbying    
   the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to guarantee all uninsured deposits for   
   two years to prevent more bank failures. In other words, they want the   
   government to backstop poorly managed banks.   
      
   Sen. Elizabeth Warren has lent support to the idea but demands that a govt   
   guarantee be tied to increased regulation. And don’t think she has only   
   stronger capital and liquidity standards in mind. Like-minded officials will   
   surely demand a ban on stock    
   buybacks and dividends, executive compensation caps and perhaps even growth   
   restrictions.   
      
   Government help is never free, as semiconductor companies are learning. Chip   
   makers lobbied Congress for enormous subsidies to build plants in the U.S.,   
   which they claimed would shore up supply chains and protect national security.   
   Republicans joined    
   Democrats last year in approving some $39 billion in direct financial aid,   
   plus a 25% investment tax credit.   
      
   Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo then conditioned the grants on companies   
   implementing the admin’s social policy. According to new rules unveiled last   
   month, chip makers receiving more than $150 million in federal grants will   
   have to provide child care    
   for their employees and guarantee “family-sustaining benefits that promote   
   economic security and mobility,” including “paid leave and caregiving   
   supports.”   
      
   Chip makers will also have to pay construction workers union wages. Intel CEO   
   Patrick Gelsinger, meet your new boss: Ms. Raimondo. Mr. Gelsinger was the   
   Chips Act’s loudest business advocate, and little wonder why: Intel has been   
   losing ground to other    
   chip makers in recent years and recorded a $664 million loss in last year’s   
   fourth quarter. Fortunately for Intel, the Treasury Department last week   
   clarified that companies will be allowed to pocket the 25% tax c   
   edit—estimated taxpayer cost: $24    
   billion—even if they owe little or no income tax because they aren’t   
   profitable.   
      
   Broadband providers also volunteered to become charges of the govt when they   
   backed the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which included $42.5   
   billion in grants for states to build high-speed broadband plus $14.2 billion   
   in subsidies for low-   
   income Americans to purchase internet service plans.   
      
   Here, too, the Commerce Dept is imposing political conditions on the cash.   
   Broadband providers will have to pay union wages, commit to not opposing   
   unions, and use project-labor agreements between unions and contractors that   
   govern terms and conditions    
   of employment.   
      
   Commerce’s grant-funding guidelines also suggest that states require   
   broadband providers to open up their networks to competitors as a condition of   
   support. The administration is trying to socialize the internet through a   
   funding back door.   
      
   Democrats learned from ObamaCare that dangling subsidies can turn businesses   
   into permanent govt dependents and allies in their cause to expand the welfare   
   state. ObamaCare gave health insurers millions of new customers and increased   
   their profits by    
   heavily subsidizing premiums in return for regulations on prices and plan   
   designs.   
      
   The 2021 American Rescue Plan Act sweetened the insurance subsidies even more.   
   These enhanced subsidies were set to expire this year, but insurers lobbied   
   Congress for an extension—warning, as the America’s Health Insurance Plans   
   lobby did, that “   
   nearly 3 million Americans would become uninsured” if the subsidies lapsed   
   at the end of 2022.   
      
   The Biden admin is now trying to co-opt the pharma industry. In December the   
   admin solicited ideas from private industry on how to boost biotech   
   manufacturing in the U.S., including suggestions for financial incentives. The   
   administration has set a goal    
   of boosting the manufacturing speed of 10 common therapeutics tenfold in five   
   years.   
      
   In response, the Pharma Research and Manufacturers of America lobby suggested   
   strengthening intellectual-property protections and streamlining the permit   
   process, among other things. Biden officials are unlikely to do either, but   
   they may be more    
   supportive of PhRMA’s proposal for a 25% investment tax credit as well as   
   direct loans and loan guarantees for U.S. drug production. The administration   
   could then tie the subsidies to progressive policies, such as price   
   restrictions, exactly as it’s    
   doing with chip makers.   
      
   Perhaps no industry has become as dependent on govt in the Biden years as auto   
   makers. A Goldman Sachs report last week estimated that the Inflation   
   Reduction Act’s electric-vehicle consumer and battery-production tax credits   
   alone could cost taxpayers    
   $523 billion over 10 years—nearly seven times as much as the 2008-2009 auto   
   bailout.   
      
   Auto makers are losing billions of dollars on EV's, but the admin is making   
   the industry too big to fail. How long before they ask government to backstop   
   their losses?   
      
   https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-big-business-married-big-gover   
   ment-biden-handouts-subsidies-chips-banking-svb-bailout-social-policy-59096477   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)