Kaine tours Micron, touts plan for 87,000 new IRS agents

Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), on Thursday, August 11, took a tour of Micron Technologies in Manassas to discuss the recently passed Chips and Science Act.

The Chips and Science Act appropriates $280 billion to invest in the production of American-made chips and semiconductors and tackle supply chain shortages that have occurred since due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

A specific part of the bill is known as the CHIPS Act, which earmarked $54 billion to help support domestic chip manufacturing to create jobs, strengthen the nation’s national security, and lower production costs.

Kaine’s visit comes after Micron announced plans to invest $40 billion through the decade’s end to build leading-edge memory manufacturing in multiple phases, with most funding coming from the CHIPS Act. Last week, stocks tumbled after Micron announced weak demand for its product.

After touring Micron’s chip production laboratories, Kaine spoke to an assembled crowd of the company’s administration and employees to talk about the benefits the act would offer to companies such as Micron, which included aspects such as incentives for research and development.

Kaine also credited Micron as one of the entities that informed legislators about the state of chip and semiconductor manufacturing. This led to the Senator’s approval of the bill and its ultimate passage and signing by President Joseph Biden.

“I’ll give Micron a lot of credit for putting this on our radar screen, telling us that we’re falling further and further behind,” said Kaine. “The U.S. produced a large chunk of the world’s chips about 25 years ago, but we’ve fallen behind because other nations have realized that this is the wave of the future, so we really need to invest.”

Also present at the event was Delegate Michelle Maldonado (D-50, Manassas, Bristow).

“There is a huge desire to bring technology and business here not just to Northern Virginia but specifically to the city of Manassas and Prince William County,” said Maldonado. “We want more people to be able to go to school here and to work here and not have to commute three hours.”

Kaine answered press questions after his talk, revealing other bills the Senator would champion. One of those bills included the Jumpstart Our Businesses by Supporting Students or JOBS Act, which according to Kaine, will expand the Pell Grants for job training in STEM fields. Pell Grants are currently available for full and part-time students as well as students who are jailed.

The Senator also briefly mentioned a bill currently pending with the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee called the Taiwan Policy Act that would seek to calibrate the U.S./Taiwan relationship to help the latter country prepare to defend itself against China without, as the Senator said, “being provocative.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took a trip to Taiwan in early August that drew criticism from the government of the People’s Republic of China, which responded with publicly held military drills by its navy.

The committee is expected to discuss the bill when it convenes in September.

Potomac Local News also asked the Senator about the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act which was recently approved by the House of Representatives and is expected to be signed by President Biden. The bill seeks to curb inflation by reducing the federal deficit, lowering prescription drug costs, investing in domestic energy production, and promoting clean energy sources.

“I think the bill is going to help some key items. It’s not going to wave a magic wand over the short-term inflation rate,” said Kaine. “Although the fact the bill reduces the deficit by $300 billion over time will cause it to help inflation.”

One aspect of the bill that has drawn controversy is the addition of 87,000 new agents for the Internal Revenue Service.

“Many of those positions are for people who are leaving. Many of those are administrators and others,” said the Senator. “In terms of agents doing audits, it could be 20 or 30,000, and some of that is replacing vacant positions. There is also a guardrail up to make sure that audits that are done don’t affect people that make less than $400,000 a year.

Republicans seeking seats in the November General Election criticized the IRS expansion. “The package raises taxes on low- and middle-income Americans hires 87,000 IRS agents who will target small businesses and families struggling to make ends meet, and forces Green New Deal policies that cripple American energy independence,” said Yesli Vega, whose running to unseat incumbent Abigail Spanberger in Virginia’s 7th House District, in eastern Prince William and Stafford County.

Kaine further elaborates that the bill seeks to protect people making less than $400,000 a year from companies or wealthy persons that scheme to get out of paying taxes by dipping into the coffers of workers.

The Senator’s tour of the Micron facility was part of a tour that included stops in Winchester to discuss the JOBS Act with public school leaders, a visit to a water treatment plant in Frederick County that Kaine assisted in appropriating $3.6 million in federal funding for the plant.