President Joe Biden on Tuesday convened his cabinet to zero in on the economy, calling his top administration officials to submit proposals to help him implement his economic plans.
Those plans include three key pieces of legislation passed in the last year: the semiconductor bill to boost chip manufacturing and compete with China, the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the sweeping Democrats-only climate and tax package Biden signed into law last month.
The president on Tuesday called on his cabinet members to help him build a “forward-looking economy” that works “from the bottom, up and the middle, out.”
“I’m not a big fan of trickle-down economics,” Biden said.
“Today, I've assembled the cabinet to lay out in detail how we're going to implement each of these laws that we have worked so hard to get passed and we've gotten passed,” he added. “Because passing these historic bills is only the first step in delivering to the American people.”
The cabinet meeting came after a week of pre-midterm election travel for the president, including stops in battlegrounds Wisconsin and Pennsylvania on Monday. There he celebrated Labor Day and labor unions while also highlighting key tenets of his economic agenda, such as the health care provisions and corporate taxes in the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, which he signed last month.
The president said on Tuesday that he had tasked each agency involved in the three economic bills to submit a proposal on how they plan to help get Americans on the “right side” of the economy and spend taxpayer money well.
The Commerce Department on Tuesday, for example, released its strategy for $50 billion in funding from the CHIPS and Science Act, an effort to establish and expand U.S. manufacturing of key semiconductor chips needed for things like cars, phones and other electronics, after domestic industry fell short during the pandemic.
“This past year, we saw the impact of the chip shortage on American families when car prices drove a third of inflation because of lack of chips,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in the White House briefing room Tuesday. “Today, the United States consumes more than 25% of the world's leading edge chips and produces zero of those chips.”
“This is not a blank check for companies,” she added. “There are clear guardrails on this money and the Department of Commerce intends to be vigilant and aggressive in protecting taxpayers.”
Raimondo said the department will begin to accept applications in February.
The CHIPS act will also get an extra bit of the limelight this week, as Biden travels to Ohio Friday to attend the groundbreaking on a new, multi-billion dollar Intel plant to make semiconductor chips.
Biden called it the “biggest investment of its kind, ever in our nation.”
“We're making things here in America. We're making our supply chains more secure, and I believe we're winning the race to the future,” he added. “Details matter though. Execution matters.”
Also at Biden’s cabinet meeting on Tuesday was John Podesta, the president’s new top adviser to shepherd the clean energy provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, which included nearly $370 in climate investment, the largest in history.
“With this cabinet — experienced, dedicated and devoted to working families — we're going to keep building a strong economy and good paying jobs and products made in America, and lead the world in innovation and success,” Biden said.