Senate approves $250B bill to boost tech research

https://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-approves-250-billion-bill-to-boost-tech-research-11623192584

129 56 5 years ago

RobLach3• 5 years ago

The Endless Frontier Act (EFA) is one of the most important legislative proposals you’ve never heard of — or at least it was.

First introduced last year by Senators Chuck Schumer and Todd Young, the bill would have established a new Technology Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF) with a DARPA-like program structure equipped with flexible hiring and grant-making authorities. With a $100 billion budget over five years, the Directorate would have been empowered to use grants, contracts, prizes, and cooperative agreements with industry, academia and research institutes to push the frontiers of U.S. innovation in ten broad areas, ranging from cutting-edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing, to more mature but no less important sectors like robotics, manufacturing, biotechnology, advanced energy technology and material sciences.

That was then, this is now. While the mission of the Technology Directorate remains nominally intact, the scale of the EFA’s ambitions were suddenly curtailed late last week. Following a flurry of Senate Commerce Committee amendments, the $100 billion originally envisioned for the Directorate dropped to just $29 billion over five years, with $54.9 billion reassigned to the NSF-proper. Of that $29 billion, only 15% or $4.35 billion is reserved for the Directorate’s core R&D mission, with the rest earmarked for scholarships, test beds, academic tech transfer, and investments in regional “innovation centers.”

https://www.niskanencenter.org/how-congress-ruined-the-endle...

seoaeu• 5 years ago

Seems it went from $100B to $29B to $250B with tons of changes to the receipt list along the way. Does anyone have a clear answer of the spending breakdown now? The news articles I see seem to be rather vague on that part

RobLach3• 5 years ago

The original $100B to the NSF mission was dropped to $29B with a bunch of other things tacked on.

I've also been searching for a breakdown of how the $250B is divided up but flipping through the legislative text it looks like another $150B is semi-relevant amendments asking for funding tacked on.

dkdk8283• 5 years ago

Does it matter? Everyone is full of shit.

encryptluks2• 5 years ago

Now watch as they give that $250B away to government contractors who then spend the money to offer more useless services to sell to the government. They'd be better off investing $250B into education and changing the curriculum to focus on open source initiatives. At least China is good at sharing ideas, even if they supposedly steal them from other companies. The issue with tech innovation in the US isn't that it needs more money, it is because it is a system designed around copyrights and proprietary BS that tends to attract the least innovation. Take Microsoft for example, they are now basically forced to adapt to Linux because their billions of dollars couldn't compete against an open source solution.

akomtu• 5 years ago

A more cynical stance is to assume the 250 billions will go to contractors who will outsource the actual R&D to China in return for useless "IP rights" that they'll use to sue each other.

It seems, the "grumpy cat of the day" hat belongs to me now.

whatshisface• 5 years ago

Do you know of any stories of that happening in the past? (not that I find it hard to believe, just that examples that are hard not to believe are better than suggestions that aren't hard to believe.)

pmorici• 5 years ago

Seems like a tautology. By definition anyone the government pays money too for a product or service is under contract and thus a government contractor.

astrange2• 5 years ago

The point of this bill is to invest in tech research projects because that's what China is investing in. We already spend a lot (more than anyone else) on education and some of it is the best in the world, while some of it isn't.

coolspot• 5 years ago

May I ask, in which areas you think US education is the best in the world?

Math? Physics? Bio-science? CS? Gender studies?

InTheArena2• 5 years ago

The bail out in this bill for blue origin is unbelievable. It’s like somebody looked at the SLS and decided hey! We need more programs like that. It distorts the market badly, and it Removes any Incentive for commercial entities to offer reasonable prices.

trhway• 5 years ago

isn't Bezos going beyond Karman line next month on his rocket (looks like a pretty ballsy move btw)? While BO achievements pale in comparison to Musk, may be the government decided to diversify a bit, and BO probably a better choice than SLS or United Launch - so a kind of progress in government spending, a sign of some minimal intelligence at least.

takeda• 5 years ago

"everything needs to work flawlessly, because our CEO is watching"

minsc__and__boo• 5 years ago

Seems the $10B is earmarked for two lunar landings though, right?

The purpose of the bill is to beef up domestic technology and decrease dependence on Chinese and foreign supply chains.

nickik3• 5 years ago

I don't really like it either but calling it a 'bail out' is just nonsense. Its not like BO is going bankrupt.

NASA had initially requested the money for two landers anyway.

InTheArena2• 5 years ago

All it takes is Bezos being unwilling to cash 2 billion dollars of stock a year for BO to go under.

nscalf2• 5 years ago

Can you explain why? If the government values this type of ongoing research by a variety of organizations, doesn't it make sense to fund that? Isn't that how research has always been done? I get that the guy who owns it is rich, but the government has always funded projects that yield R&D returns in a variety of ways. Doing this allows them to affect Blue Origins direction instead of stay at the whim of a billionaire. We should be applauding the government taking moon shots (literally), not hating it. Would you rather the government spin up another NASA type org for research? They already give funding to huge amounts of companies and labs in the form of grants, loans, and contracts.

I get short term it can affect prices, but long term it accelerates technology. And these types of investments, even though they don't always yield the intended results, have had a massive impact on GDP. The thing we really know is that investments like this pay off, so I really don't get the hate on this other than the fact that the owner is rich.

nomoreplease• 5 years ago

Are we desensitized to large dollar numbers? The past year we have spent trillions more than previous years. Has anyone looked at the total govt debt in a whole?

RobLach3• 5 years ago

A lot of this bill is R&D and infrastructure which has historically generally paid back a multiple of the original investment.

fennecfoxen• 5 years ago

This bill does not claim to fund infrastructure, though given the things the "infrastructure" bill refers to as "infrastructure" and funds, perhaps we should take what we can get. I would stay it's at least as much "infrastructure" as elder care, and probably more.

That said, while the returns on some government funded investments have been good, the return on others is nil, and the accounting is often puffed up by those who will benefit. It is quite reasonable to question whether this funding will be directed effectively, or whether it will be free money to inefficient dinosaurs like, say, IBM, which has lauded the bill. Others in these pages have noted a Blue Origin bail-out, more or less, which does more to reward the company for being politically connected than it does reward it for successful innovation.

With regards to the question in the grandparent: Yes. Yes, we are desensitized. Do not expect this to change soon. If you fear we shall face ruin, take comfort in the words of Adam Smith: there is quite a lot of ruin in a nation.

antognini• 5 years ago

Here is a figure from the CBO: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/images/full-reports/...

29athrowaway• 5 years ago

Let's say the government spends $250b.

Even considering all the blatant tax evasion in the private sector... some of that money will be spent on payroll. And each one of those salaries pay income tax.

Then, each person will go and stuff with their salary, stuff that pays sales tax. And they will also be paying taxes in various ways.

So, tl;dr: some of those $250b will become tax revenue.

Let's hope those $250b won't become stock buybacks, executive bonuses and other forms of corporate welfare.

krferriter2• 5 years ago

These sorts of funding measures should come with strings like that any company receiving funds cannot do any stock buybacks for a certain period of time (a few years).

neonate• 5 years ago

https://archive.is/UnIqF

ardme2• 5 years ago

What exactly is in this bill and where is the money going? I'm having a very hard time researching this for some reason. Is there anything of interest to software technologists in there?

ylem• 5 years ago

I looked at a PDF of the bill that was linked to in the WaPo version of the article. It probably doesn't matter until the House passes its version, but there are funds for AI workforce development for example that might be of interest to those early in their careers.

ardme2• 5 years ago

Thanks, that's interesting to note. The main thing people seem to talk about is the 52 billion for semiconductors which is the "CHIPS" act. Just wondering about the other 200 billion. It looked like $29 billion went to the NSF?

mnouquet2• 5 years ago

Let me guess, this is gonna go straight in Google, Microsoft, Oracle pocket ?

Not only they skip taxes (which I have no problem about), but they lobby to get billions in government fundings...

Rebelgecko2• 5 years ago

Theres still some innuendos (like they don't explicitly mention the redundancy of developing a second lunar lander), but I think there's a good write-up of what the bill includes here- https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2021/6/chair-cantwell-statem...

throwaway4good2• 5 years ago

This article has more details:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/06/08/senate-c...

Senate approves sprawling $250 billion bill to curtail China’s economic and military ambitions

And it links to the actual bill:

https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/DAV21A48.pdf

paulpauper• 5 years ago

Remarkable how much spending has ballooned over the past 13 years, and this is coming from someone who is receptive to MMT. This is about 1/3 the size of the 2008 bank bailout, which at the time was a monumental undertaking and not without considerable deliberation, yet $250 billion now feels like an afterthought, at a whim. We really are in the era of free money. We're nowhere near the boundary what is possible.

mjburgess• 5 years ago

We're always in an era until we aren't.

Given what's happening with commodity prices and the stock market (ie., inflation), I think this is the calm before the storm.

yourapostasy• 5 years ago

Given what's happening with commodity prices and the stock market (ie., inflation)...

There are enormously powerful deflationary forces (debt-to-income overhang, demographics, automation/wage stagnation, globalization, and the pandemic) operating on the global economy, and I'm finding it hard to obtain sufficiently accurate historical data to discern how it all nets out between these deflationary forces and the inflationary tsunami unleashed. Human nature practically predestines that uncontrolled inflation will break out, the question is when.

throwaway4good2• 5 years ago

As long as the Chinese are willing to produce goods at cheap for dollars, printing some more shouldn’t be a problem ...

camel_Snake• 5 years ago

The era of 'The era of Big Government is over' is over.

NikolaeVarius• 5 years ago

Difference is that the outrage was over bailing out the corps that heavily contributed to the issue in the first place, versus a coordinated funding increase for a specific goal

tibbydudeza2• 5 years ago

Semiconductors are the new F35.

I won't be too surprised if Lockheed Martin forms a semiconductor division within the next few months promising to research next generation beyond EUV manufacturing.

LargoLasskhyfv2• 5 years ago

Hmmm. Not exactly LM, but would https://www.google.com/search?&q=honeywell+quantum+computer suffice? :-)

tibbydudeza2• 5 years ago

Even better - like fusion power - theoretical possibility but with rather a vague timeline for a practical deliverable.

packetlost• 5 years ago

Honeywell isn't even the only US-based QC company out there right now

Shadonototro• 5 years ago

So they acknowledge china's communism works better than their capitalism?

jacob2484• 5 years ago

Just like the Soviet Union. Plus China has tons of free market policies.

nickik3• 5 years ago

These kinds of bills are so popular because every single person in the senate can put his own hobby horses into it.

BO additional money, money for Boeing in Mississippi and so on.

nscalf2• 5 years ago

Lots of knee jerk hate on the government for spending money in this thread. Investing in R&D (and infrastructure) is more or less the best investment the government can make. Historically these investments have been incredibly successful, and have allowed the US to lead the world in a number of ways. We have some of the best researchers in the world, we should give them money to do their research.

On the hate for government contractors---like any R&D investment, they don't all pan out. This is why we make redundant investments. Overall, the ROI has been very positive even including the failures.

On the increased size of government spending---we're already spending trillions, I know it sounds big, we've inflated very quickly. This is how watered down money is now though, we need to adapt to the new inflated price of things. Personally, I have a huge amount of patience for investments in technology research. The other way we get out from under debt is raising taxes. Would you rather see tax rates hike and no real progress be made, or returns from investments help get us out from this hole and advance technology?

graycat• 5 years ago

There is a point rarely mentioned but likely important: Academic research is highly competitive. Doing well in an academic career is essentially the same as doing well in the competition.

In particular, the Federal government, Congress, the NSF and NIH don't have to check the quality of the work closely for each grant because the academic system will check the quality before a researcher gets progress in their career.

Senate approves $250B bill to boost tech research

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