If we just write them a check, they'll do whatever they want with it. They need to be held accountable, and ownership percentage is a way to do that.
Alternatively, the gov could take this money, start up a corporation of their own, and make their own fab. The language in part of this bill is that they are trying to ensure that older tech and DoD stuff is made in house. So let's make it in house.
We don't necessarily need to say "we're buying intel or nvidia", but we can make the money available to any company in exchange for the ownership percentage. That eliminates the "playing favorites" issue, I would think.
What are you basing this on?
I do see a section that would allow the suspension of new funds, if it's found that these companies aren't upholding the agreement. I don't think suspension of new funds is sufficient.
Implementation is left to the agencies. We're only seeing the Congress appropriating money. Contract specifics are being developed.
The government has plenty of demand-side tools to on-shore development without hurting competition or playing favorites with large incumbents. The DoD and DoE are massive semiconductor purchasers and have a lot of leverage in the market who can adjust their procurement strategies to promote American interests. That's not entirely without the opportunity for corruption and grift either, but at least there's more accountability.
I mean, I think we basically agree that handouts to large semiconductor companies without anything in return is a bad idea.
That's one of the reasons we're doing this in the first place. National security is in the mix as well. What would actually change [edit: beyond citizens gaining ownership and some say in what happens]?
https://www.fabricatedknowledge.com/p/history-lesson-the-198...
What about the safeguards, which are in place, makes you uneasy?
You could also just consider the grants to be loans that never need to be paid back as long as some set of concrete requirements is met by the company.
I would agree that student loans shouldn't be that way either, but, we shouldn't be handing out money upfront without guarantees that the incentivized behavior will actually happen - the two things that come to mind are the 90's fiber rollout and the Foxconn subsidies in wisconsin, both of which the company took the money and then never actually built the infrastructure. If there are going to be outright subsidies, they certainly need to be contingent on meeting milestones, and not just "pretty please build a plant, here's a big check to encourage you but no strings attached".
Think about how the US did the auto bailouts as well - we got a big chunk of equity that we eventually unwound on favorable terms, but we didn't just write a check and be done either. Same thing, maybe if TSMC wants a big grant for expansion, maybe the US should get a big chunk of equity (at guaranteed and favorable terms) and then if milestones are met the equity is again wound down at favorable terms such that the benefit of the "favorable terms" on both sides amounts to the subsidy.
That said, I was looking into it today and it looks like they have actually been meeting some sort of revised hiring target recently [1]. I have heard from some peers that the jobs they are hiring for are basically make-work jobs, but the deal doesn't care what they accomplish -- only how many "jobs" they create.
It's still shady crap which wasted tax payer money (not to mention abused eminent domain), but I don't think in any way involved a big check with no strings attached.