Let's say Intel takes the deal and trades some ownership percentage for some funds to build more fabs. Suddenly the US government has a multi-billion dollar reason to provide political support for whatever is good for Intel. It's inherently favorable to incumbents who have the market share to make a favorable deal, regardless of whether or not those incumbents are best able to build world-class fabs.

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.