Uncle SAM, Uncle BIL, Uncle IRA and Uncle CHIPs
It's not just Uncle Sam providing grants anymore. Three visiting uncles are here to shower you with gifts, assuming you show up to the party. BIL, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation is here to incentivize you to provide safe drinking water, universal broadband, and to repair roads and bridges. IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act wants you to mitigate climate change, create good union jobs, and build up the social infrastructure like daycare and societal health that creates family-friendly communities. CHIP, is Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors as part of the CHIPS and Science Act.
Uncle Chip is a complicated guy. He's really an industrial policy initiative taking place against the background of an artificial intelligence cold war between the US and China. Note that AI technology relies on the kind of high-end semiconductors produced only by the US, Taiwan, and South Korea, with equipment that is only produced by the US, Japan and European allies. The US wants it to stay that way so that China and Russia can stop with their intense profiling of citizens and delay them from succeeding in the kind of Quantum Computing advances that will blow today's cybersecurity to bits.
Let's get back to Great Uncle Sam.
From Investopedia: The usage of "Uncle Sam" is (apparently) tied to a real person - a meat packer named Samuel Wilson. He served as an officer during the American Revolutionary War, procuring meat supplies for the Continental Army.
After leaving the army, he and his brother went on to establish a meatpacking house in Troy, New York, which supplied U.S. troops in New York and New Jersey who were fighting against British invaders during the War of 1812. Barrels of Wilson's meat stamped "U.S." were associated with his nickname, Uncle Sam, which in turn became a personification of the national government, as the initials for the United States are also U.S.
Interesting, eh?
The other Uncles are only Visiting
Uncle Sam, the USA, is no longer the sole provider of formula grant money or competitive/discretionary grant money. BIL and IRA are pouring money into formula grants which provide annual money to pave roads and examine dams, as well as providing $$ to special, worthy projects. Once-in-a-generation projects.
CHIPS isn't about maintenance. CHIPS is about working with industry to build up the hardware manufacturing sector that makes silicon valley possible.
Thank you!
Thank you for reading - please like-and-subscribe. Meanwhile, here are a few other articles for background.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/chips-act-climate-change-beth-kujan
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/quantum-computing-has-funding-moment-beth-kujan
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bipartisan-infrastructure-law-discretionary-grants-public-beth-kujan
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/chips-act-rehab-addiction-cheap-semiconductors-beth-kujan