As I referenced earlier in this thread, the (US) government has tried before to weigh in... specifically in the area of semiconductors! - with SEMATECH in the 80's. That's just one easy example, and the only significant difference then to now is that back then it was the growing Japanese dominance of IC fabrication that was used to rationalize the tax dollars. I'll leave it to the reader to see how much real effect it had, and how the "mission" has changed in the meantime. But one could argue that if SEMATECH had been successful we wouldn't be asking the same questions (and proposing the same "solutions") today.
I don't know about this situation specifically, but I'd put $5 on it that it got corrupted like most other public programs in the US do -- some combination of, too many hands in the pot, or some kind of unbalanced "public-private partnership" which ends up turning it into a for-profit venture and thus sucking it dry of whatever money it started with. (If it turns out sustainably profitable, fine, I guess, but if not, liquidate all the assets post-haste, and cut and run before Congress can organize an investigation. If they even care to.)
That Solyndra thing is kind of an example, IIRC, on the more blatantly exploitative side. What I've heard about the infamous [housing] "Projects" is very much along these lines: sold to realtors with limited oversight (they were still public projects, so, had some oversight, but not nearly enough), and in the pursuit of profits of course maintenance was the first to go, so of course they turned into dumps, how couldn't they? Or the perennial barrel of hog, military expenditures. If it's related to military hardware, you better believe your ass it's split across as many congressional districts as humanly possible. Who needs a functioning weapons platform? We'll just make the F35 instead, what's the worst that could happen...
Government has a role to play in large collective efforts. Examples might include the Louisiana Purchase and the Space Program, where the "project" could not jump-start itself and required a huge bolus of investment to get things rolling before the private sector could ramp up. But IC fabrication, while constantly advancing, is pretty much an established industry at this point. It's quite possible to budget and schedule a new fab with reasonable accuracy. It's no longer in the realm of "pushing the science" but simply on-shoring known technology.
One would hope, at least -- but given the above pressures, I would expect it to overrun in the usual way.
I suppose one odd option might be, if in the interests of security, the primary customers pitch in to support such a thing, in a more closed-off sort of way. Example, maybe the military opens a lab specifically for this purpose, with the aims of developing worker skills, practices and procedures, and a goal of being able to produce almost anything they would need (under suitable license from domestic manufacturers -- which, what they would get in return, besides a 2nd-source fab, or other than license fees, I'm not sure), ramping up production within a reasonable time frame as might be needed. Maybe it's foolish or redundant, as the military probably wouldn't need very much fab capacity to meet its own demand, and it would just end up a massive waste of money (but, not like they're exactly short in budget). Maybe even then, in the search to make it reasonably practical, it would end up with too many hands in the pot and again succumb to the usual sorts of corruption (not to mention design-by-committee) fate.
Shrug, Idunno. Anyway, that's just one example, and like you say, there's a zillion other markets that we'd still have to account for.
I mean, regarding that last bit -- it's a manifest truth these days, that everything and everyone is interconnected. Local manufacture for any particular sort of thing isn't important; but strategic, economic partners and allies around the world, are paramount. Investing in those relationships is a far more productive and beneficial strategy, for everyone.
And then, what form that takes, geopolitically speaking -- I have no idea. It seems we can't all be friends. To be sure, there is a sliding scale of friendship, economic relationships can be far finer-grained than interpersonal ones I would dare say; even US-Russia trade (until recently) was a thing, limited as it was. I don't know what specifically it is, about a country's geography, weather, mineral resources, population and politics, that dictates whether they are likely to move one way or another, in terms of global alliances, trade partnerships, or even just democratic vs. autocratic rule. It very much seems like something governed by a, potentially much simpler differential equation than we might expect given the sheer number of variables and inputs. But I'm far from a political scientist, as well...
The same could be done for metal foundries, many of which closed here in response to increased overseas capacity during the last several decades. I'm sure there are plenty more industries in similar situations, since offshoring isn't unique to semiconductors nor metal fabrication. Should we be on-shoring all those industries too? If there's not enough tax dollars to do all of them, which (entire!) industries does "the public" decide are worthy and which not? Isn't that picking winners and losers? It eventually gets called subsidizing, a dirty word used by those whose pet project/industry/cause isn't similarly funded.
Subsidy is a nothingburger, at least as a technical matter, I think; what matters is who holds the cards. Right now, oil holds the aces, so they get all the subsidy, no naughty words are ever aired about them by the media, and everything else gets demonized. I don't know how much of that we can change based on public perception, but it's probably a bridge too far to ask for a little critical thought where it comes to the consumption of media. Improved education would be wonderful, but far too slowly acting to be useful I'm afraid (so, necessary going forward, but not an immediate solution). It'll take a push from on top, and there's nowhere near enough votes to get enough people in office to be able to do something like that (if they can successfully run at all; progressives have made only minor progress lately -- but some, which is encouraging).
EDIT: Lest I be branded as only complaining without offering suggestions, how about this. It's a generally accepted economic premise that you get less of those things which are taxed. The corollary is that you get more of those things which are taxed less. If we want more domestic IC fabrication because we deem it in the public interest, how about we specifically exempt it from taxation? If necessary, THAT could be a zero-sum (aka "paygo") tax relationship ("investment" dollars which would have been spent could be made roughly equal to "tax revenue" dollars which instead go uncollected). This removes the politicians from making winner/loser decisions, and instead incentivizes existing entities to favor investing in domestic facilities. Just an idea, one that is much easier and less contentious to implement.
Even that's not quite enough -- as long as you have politicians and their family/friends/cronies sharing knowledge of legislative action, and trading stocks and various other financial incentives, you don't even need direct public dollars as kickbacks. It runs deep, and alas, I don't know enough about it to begin to strategize ways around it. But, fortunately that's not my job; I know roughly what outcome I want, we just need a team to come up with a strategy to get there, and then implement it.
Tim
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