[twoodfin]

Republicans have basically 0 to do with any of the reasons the Biden administration is struggling to implement the CHIPS act.

They’re struggling because

a) Industrial policy is hard enough in a federal system without …

b) A federal government inexperienced with implementing industrial policy and …

c) An administration that sees industrial policy as YA avenue to achieve its social objectives, so called “everything bagel liberalism” [1].

I think industrial policy is a terrible idea, so not too distressed to see it trip out of the starting gate.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/02/opinion/democrats-liberal...

[TaylorAlexander]

The comment we're discussing just mentions “US interests”. So for example providing military support to Ukraine, which the republicans keep blocking, or establishing programs to manage the border, which Biden has proposed and Republicans now oppose because they don’t want that issue relieved before the election, so they can point at how bad Biden is with the border.

[rayiner]

Supporting Ukraine isn’t in America’s interest. Stopping bankrolling random foreign wars was one thing republicans finally got right after decades of getting it wrong.

And the border proposal was a fake-out, just like Reagan’s amnesty, which was supposed to be combined with border controls but never was. The goal of the recent border legislation was to make 5,000 illegal crossings a day (5 times higher than under Obama) the “new normal.”

[schainks]

It is absolutely in America's interest. For less than 0.01% of the defense budget, the USA can disarm Russia as a threat for another 50 years, if not forever.

The ROI looks pretty good:

1. Bolster NATO (Sweden and Finland have joined already)

2. Bolster the EU (Ukraine and Turkey gaining membership would be interesting)

3. Revive EU self-interest in not relying on US military and cash. This directly results in less foreign random wars because more parties are stakeholders.

4. Diplomatic leverage against China. They are actively supplying manufacturing capacity for weapons to the Russians.

5. Transparency around for who is supplying who with what regarding weapons and Russia. This makes it easier to sanction people/companies that do things that are Bad For Business globally.