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$8.5 in corporate welfare, out of a total of $39B that "Biden has to spend." - That's about $100 per person in the US. How about just give us each $100 instead, and we can vote with those Dollars for what we want? Maybe we'd rather invest it in food, clothes, shelter, transportation, etc.

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I suppose at least the theory is $100/person invested in chips will collectively benefit us more as we will not lose the strategic advantage in chipmaking. Surgical planned economy to cover the gaps in market economy and tragedy of the commons situations.

planned economies only enrich the planners

Strictly speaking that is manifestly false (the "only" part). At the very least, in practice they usually enable a bunch of unnatural markets/behaviors (usually falling under "corruption") that enrich many ancillary parties in addition to the planners, even if they don't enrich the general population (last I checked the west was filled with plenty of Marxist-adjacents who make arguments of such sort, so I suppose it it is not a given for everyone). To be clear, I am not advocating for the grant per se; just describing a theory the other side might be operating under.

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