Incentives 2022
News on the way with regard to incentives for the purchase of electric and plug-in hybrid cars, according to 'La Repubblica': in the Aid bis decree it seems that interesting information is reported regarding the economic contributions dedicated to the less affluent segment of the population. It is still early for confirmation, but the proposal exists and now we have to wait to see if it will materialize.The idea is very simple, how effective: for all those who have an income of less than 30 thousand euros a 50% increase in the incentive is foreseen, to try to give a greater boost to the use of the funds allocated for 2022. For the moment, the 2022 incentives are not leading to great results, because electric and plug-in hybrid cars they still have prohibitive prices for most, even considering the incentives.
But that's not all, because it is also important to think about the charging infrastructure and not just the purchase of the vehicles: therefore the Ministry of Economic Development is thinking of introducing a bonus that also supports installation of a private wall box, with a contribution of up to 80%. In the case of private customers we are talking about a maximum amount of 1500 euros, while in the case of an intervention involving an entire condominium the figure can rise up to 8000 euros.
Now it remains to be understood whether the government will approve the decree Aid bis in this version, which provides for the introduction of these additional bonuses; a surprising move, especially considering that there are those who are thinking of completely eliminating bonuses for the purchase of electric cars.
The CHIPS Act, which is poised to provide Intel incentives for Ohio plant, heads to President Biden: Capitol Letter
Rotunda Rumblings
How to semiconduct yourself: The U.S. House of Representatives signed off on the CHIPS Act, which provides billions of dollars in funding for semiconductor manufacturing and is a huge boon to the planned Intel factory in suburban Columbus, Andrew Tobias reports. Most of Ohio’s congressional delegation voted for the bill, with four Republicans voting against it. The bill now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk for a signature.
Stay classy: A federal judge in California picked the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System as the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Tobias reports. The suit contends that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives downplayed risks or exaggerated the company’s controls over false or extremist content, which inevitably led to a slide in the share price when it became public.
Story behind the story: While politicians were flapping their gums, casting doubt on the story of a 10-year-old girl who went to Indiana for an abortion after she was raped, the Dispatch’s Bethany Bruner started working the phones and checking court records, trying to track down the crime. She ultimately broke the story, though few GOP politicians who doubted it offered any apologies, the Washington Post reports.
Onto the Senate: The U.S. House passed a bill that would restore the pensions of 50,000 Ohio Delphi retirees who lost retirement savings when GM went into bankruptcy, reports the Associated Press’ Fatima Hussein. The bill now heads to the Senate.
Flirting with Republicans: U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democrat seeking Ohio’s open U.S. Senate Seat, is campaigning so hard among Republican voters that J.D. Vance, the Republican running for the seat, admitted he’s spoken to voters who thought Ryan was a Republican, NBC News’ Henry J. Gomez reports. However, Vance hints that his campaign will soon come out with TV advertisements, meant to show that Ryan is a liberal.
‘Mostly true:’ PolitiFact fact checked Tim Ryan’s claims that J.D. Vance’s Our Ohio Renewal nonprofit, in part set up to fight the opioid crisis, mostly paid a political consultant and commissioned a survey. It did little to fight addiction. It could not find any evidence that the organization had worked in the addiction or recovery space, and determined Ryan’s claims to be mostly true.
Abortion rights for girls: Although state Sen. Kristina Roegner, a Hudson Republican who sponsored the fetal heart tone abortion bill, wrote an op-ed for the Columbus Dispatch, claiming it was unnecessary for the 10-year-old girl who was raped to travel to Indianapolis for an abortion, though questions remain. The Dispatch’s Anna Staver and Haley BeMiller write that it still may have been illegal - unless the girl’s life was in danger or she was diagnosed with preeclampsia, inevitable abortion or premature rupture of membranes and possibly diabetes and multiple sclerosis.
Taking a swing: Beginning with Rocky River’s Kristen Bentz, the New York Times asked swing voters across the U.S. how they were going to vote in November. Women generally felt Biden should have better responded to inflation, but support abortion rights. An increasing number of older Hispanic and Asian American voters are expected to vote for Republicans, but it’s hard to determine how these thoughts will translate to votes in November.
From Big Tech, but not of Big Tech: The New York Times’ Jonathan Weisman looked at the campaigns of J.D. Vance, Memet Oz and Blake Masters, all U.S. Senate hopefuls who are negative about Big Tech, even though Vance and Masters have ties to it. Vance, whose campaign has been propped up by a super PAC funded by venture capitalist Peter Thiel, separately received money from Thiel to form a venture capital firm called Narya Capital. Narya Capital funded Hallow, the Catholic prayer and meditation app with privacy policies that allow it to share some user data for advertising.
Buckeye Brain Tease
Question: During the American Revolution, British troops burned down several Connecticut towns. Residents lost everything. The Connecticut legislature set aside land for the residents to start over, in a region of present-day Ohio. What is this area called?
Email your response to capitolletter@cleveland.com. The first correct respondent will be mentioned in next week’s newsletter.
Thanks to everyone who responded to last week’s trivia question:
This pornography kingpin from Cleveland’s East Side began his career selling comic books and magazines. By the 1960s, he became the country’s largest distributor of adult magazines. Pursued by the government for breaking obscenity laws and tax evasion, he ultimately died in federal prison in the 1990s. Who was he?
Answer: Reuben Sturman, whose pornography business controlled over 200 companies, including bookstores and movie theaters in Cleveland, Las Vegas, Reno, San Francisco and San Diego.
Capitol Letter reader Kevin Hawkins of Concord Township in Lake County was the first to send in the correct answer.
On the Move
Sheet Metal Workers Local Unions 24 and 33 have endorsed Gov. Mike DeWine for re-election.
Birthdays
Thomas Corwin, Ohio’s 15th governor (1794-1865)
Straight From The Source
“Sometimes the political lines fall along what race you are, how much money you make, s--- like that. So you see Black people in one room, white people in the other room, rich people, poor people. But what I saw in Ohio was all types of people – Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, wealthy, poor – I saw people working in a rainbow coalition for the betterment of Ohio. And I think our nation – because you gotta understand one of my heroes, a man named John Brown, was from motherf------ Ohio. And I need you to understand, and I think you already do, that it is we the people versus the motherf------ state.”
-Mike Render, better known as rapper Killer Mike and one-half of the duo Run The Jewels, during a Wednesday concert in Cleveland. Killer Mike also touched on his campaigning for Democratic former state Sen. Nina Turner in the highly divisive 11th Congressional District special election in 2021. Killer Mike said he wished Democratic Rep. Shontel Brown well in Congress.
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