[scottyah]

I think it's the same problem as the past administration and most members of congress- they're just too old to care about 50yrs from now. I don't think they're actively against the 50yr+ future, it's just that the world is changing too fast, and they're falling back to what they know- competing with their peers for power, money, and status. They only have some inkling of actual empathy for the communities their grandkids are in at a personal level, and just have the "throw money at it" mentality for the bigger issues like healthcare, since that has been their MO for the last couple decades. Instead of taking leadership positions and driving change, they seem to just want to squabble and create fiefdoms and have others do the work.

[afavour]

I do think the current administration is still a step down from the (not particularly great) last, though. Congress has essentially given up their authority on everything so any movement must come from the top… and the top has an extremely small attention span.

[smallmancontrov]

> same problem as the past administration

Did you miss the Infrastructure act that spent $500B on roads, ports, and water projects? The CHIPS act that spent $50B on decoupling and R&D?! The Climate & Energy act ("IRA") that spent $400B on clean energy subsidies??!!

I can understand the perspective of wanting more, but the forward-looking policies of the last administration were in a different galaxy compared to those of the current administration, where the big plan is to chop USAID, boost deportations, and cut capital gains tax.

This is the difference between corn and the cob and corn in the toilet. No, it is not the same.

[terminalshort]

The problem is that China could have built the same infrastructure for $100B and in 25% of the time. Pumping subsidies into our bloated bureaucratic nightmare of a system is only going to make the lawyers and bureaucrats who are its gatekeepers fatter.

[trollbridge]

I’ve met one person whose job was funded via the CHIPS act - she was a lawyer.

I bet China’s first priority when building semiconductors isn’t hiring lawyers.

[smallmancontrov]

TSMC Arizona Gigafab, Intel's Chandler fabs, Micron's Boise megafab, these are all giant buildings full of equipment cranking out chips or credibly preparing to. I'd hazard a guess that more than lawyers were involved.

Oh, but trollbridge saw a lawyer once! That's it, phone it in, shut it all down, corruption proven, the gigantic buildings must be all be a mirage. Trollbridge saw a lawyer and that disproves everything!

Troll harder lol.

[vkou]

I've never met a corn farmer, but somehow the corn ends up on my plate.

[earlyreturns]

Where are the CHIPs then? Oh but at least our infrastructure was rebuilt. Right?

[smallmancontrov]

In the google results, if you had bothered to google. It turns out $50B was enough to tip the investment calculus on half a dozen large projects and a dozen or so smaller ones.

So tell me: was it learned helplessness or partisan hackery that made you severely underestimate what turned out to be possible?

[earlyreturns]

My opinion comes from my personal experience with CHiPs funded projects but admittedly thats merely anecdotal knowledge so I’m very glad to hear that Biden’s “biggest ever!”(tm) inflation reduction package met its goals and wasn’t just money printing and political cronyism. Imagine where we would be without all those new chip fabs and infrastructure fixes you mentioned finding in your Google search. You’re right, that was 50 billion, give or take, well spent!