How would you prefer the lobbyists act? Corporations do have interests and it’s sometimes beneficial for those interests to be taken into account when creating laws (e.g. Intel with fab construction).
Bringing up inefficiency seems wrong because the goal is a subsidy not acting in the interest of the general public.
That’s an extremely defensible policy goal.
Politicians aren’t stupid, when your argument only works if you assume stupidity then you’re likely misunderstanding something.
We’re still going to still be importing chips after spending this money. So by your reasoning this is a failed initiative.
Frankly if it’s pure protectionism then slap a Tariff on them.
It's good when we do it, it's bad when China does it
> Trying to manipulate markets via subsidies is horrifically inefficient
By what means should markets be manipulated?
There is literally an entire govt department in the US whose core job is to unbiasedly keep the politicians informed on the expert details of the areas they're legislating.
Specifically, the Library of Congress (this is why the US Congress has a library), and it's Congressional Research Service.