Quicktake: 2023 State of the Union

 It is the time of the year when the President of the United States takes a short trip down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington to give the State of the Union speech. This speech which may seem like a grand update to Congress really more is more of a list of accomplishments and a policy speech outlining the President's priorities for legislation. Now is a good time to review the technology affecting policies that the President has proposed.

President mentioned the CHIPS Act which was passed last year early in his speech as a major accomplishment of the first half of his presidency. He touted the 3000 high paying jobs that will be created in Ohio by Intel investing in a new chip plant. The law is intended to shore up American manufacturing of semiconductor chips by spending significant sums of money in subsidies and other investments. President Biden may have emphasized the quality jobs from the new chip fab that Intel is building for blue collar workers, but the investments in technology development will allow for the next generation of technologies similar to the cell phone and computer. The CHIPS Act is not only a law intended to invest in minimizing the supply chain disruptions and good paying jobs, but also is going to support an important and often overlooked part of America's national security.

The climate crisis was also brought up in the State of the Union. President Biden declared that America is stepping up to the table for the first time in a while. The Biden administration has reversed Trump's decision to leave the Paris Climate agreement. The mention in the speech was a rallying cry for continuing to implement policies that would avoid the worst of climate change. The reality is that the first two years of the Biden administration there have some minor policy changes that will have an impact on climate change. The major legislation that would have greater impacts was stymied. The risk of losing out in the green technology revolution could be significant to the American economy.

The last major topic that President Biden brought up was the Cancer moonshot. This issue is particularly close to him as he was asked by President Obama to lead this effort from it's inception and his family has been deeply affected by cancer. The investment in cancer research by the government has the ability to lead to breakthroughs that will lead to new biotechnology companies. Every American can remember that nearly three years ago there was a mysterious new virus causing an epidemic that would become a pandemic. It is important to remember that a vaccine was able to be created in record time due to mRNA technology. mRNA was only available due to the government research funding that supported this potential new technology. The cancer moonshot poses an opportunity to improve cancer treatments and healthcare in general.