Thread by @America_2100

Last night, we heard a lot about the Biden-Harris record on infrastructure.

They're right about one thing: They threw tons of cash at the issue—more than $1.6 trillion since 2021.

The problem is, we have no idea where most of that money went.

The details are shocking. (1/15)

Biden's big infrastructure "wins" involve four bills: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan, and the CHIPS Act.

The first two alone had a price tag of almost $1 trillion. But only $1.25 billion has actually been spent. (2/15)

We see the same issue with the CHIPS Act—one of Biden's signature infrastructure bills. The law was pitched as a way to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to America.

The bill appropriated $52 billion. Two years later, less than $1 billion has been formally awarded. (3/15)

Here's one more example: Last night, Biden boasted that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law's $5 billion electric vehicle program had built "500,000 charging stations all across America."

As of February 2024, the actual number is eight. (4/15)

So what's going on? In this thread, we'll be looking at @ThomasHochman's new essay on this for @AmericanAffrs.

We'll use the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—one of Biden's biggest infrastructure bills—as our case study for how things went wrong. (5/15)

The CHIPS Act took a relatively simple approach: The government gives grants directly to specific manufacturers.

But the IRA favored a different approach—one that has increasingly been favored in industrial policy circles: Doling out tax credits to eligible recipients. (6/15)

Here's where things get crazy. Nearly all of these credits are uncapped, which means there's no limit on how many the government can dole out.

And because they enjoy IRS confidentiality, nobody knows how much we're spending or what we're spending it on.

Hochman writes: (7/15)

While IRA's original budget was roughly $369 billion, the real cost is now projected to be closer to $1 trillion over the next decade—more than triple the original price.

"The spending under the law is therefore not just hard to track; it’s also theoretically unlimited." (8/15)

Even worse, the IRA has few restrictions on "foreign entities of concern."

In other words, the bill was pitched as a way to fund clean energy jobs for Americans—but a lot of the cash is probably going to China, which dominates the industries the IRA is pouring cash into. (9/15)

Chinese companies have made up nearly a quarter of new "American" solar capacity since IRA was passed.

And on top of that, "many IRA-funded companies will source their raw materials from Chinese manufacturers and their components from Chinese suppliers," Hochman writes. (10/15)

Republicans—at least, the ones who are paying attention—have been publicly sounding the alarm about the fact that American dollars are flooding to China en masse.

Marco Rubio, in particular, has introduced multiple bills to try to block China from accessing IRA funds. (11/15)

But the White House has shown little interest in addressing the issue—or even acknowledging it.

The issue is bigger than IRA. Chinese companies have been making a killing off of a whole suite of programs in Biden's various climate and infrastructure bills.

Per Hochman: (12/15)

To add insult to injury, Hochman writes, we're now seeing "the rollback of the very provisions that were meant to increase American manufacturing independence." (Emphasis ours)

The infrastructure law's "Made in America" mandate was waived to make EV chargers in...China. (13/15)

All of this undermines the central political pitch of Biden's climate, infrastructure and manufacturing agenda.

The argument was that these bills would lead to good jobs for American workers and make us more competitive with China. We heard it again at last night's DNC: (14/15)

America does need an industrial policy. We do need manufacturing. We must reshore critical supply chains.

Republicans should be articulating "a vision for industrial policy," Hochman writes. But we "will need to be clear about what that policy is trying to achieve." (15/15)

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