Biden aims billions in taxpayer money at companies' labor, supply practices

 U.S. President Joe Biden is using $1.5 trillion in new federal spending to continue his push to reshape the U.S. economy, redirect corporate profits and reverse a decades-old decline in the benefits that go to workers.

With a new team of progressive-leaning economic advisers and a fiscal war chest of three massive spending bills, the Biden administration is using new guidelines to pressure companies to expand childcare, produce more in the United States and hire more equitably.

Every president puts his stamp on how federal money is spent, but Biden was using a broader range of tools, including tax changes, implementation of new legislation and stepped-up anti-trust enforcement to affect change, said Ganesh Sitaraman, who heads a new political economy initiative at Vanderbilt University.

"What Biden and his advisers are doing is solving problems that exist in the economy. They are pushing forward an agenda aimed at building things in America again ... and taking on corporate power," he said.

Biden ran on a major reset of the U.S. economy, and against the idea popularized during the Ronald Reagan era that tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy unleash investment that would "trickle down" to the broader economy.

The Commerce Department on Tuesday rolled out the terms for companies to apply for $52 billion in semiconductor manufacturing subsidies that require them to plan for access to child care for their workers, use low-emission energy sources, limit stock buybacks, and allow their workers to unionize.

The $430-billion Inflation Reduction Act gives the U.S. Treasury oversight of $270 billion in tax incentives, which the agency says it is focusing at clean energy projects that pay workers good wages and hire apprentices. A Department of Energy provision in the act requires companies to focus on workforce training, ensure diversity and engage "environmental justice" communities in planning. And the $1 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure bill is stacked with "Made in America" quotas.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/biden-aims-billions-taxpayer-money-192309168.html