Industrial Policy
Conceptual Framework: Focus on climate change, defense, and middle-class prosperity. Simple framework to support these three legs, no further strings needed. Let’s enable business to do what business does best—create, grow, and compete.
Climate Change – We need speed and scale to solve our climate crisis.
Subsidies will catalyze private investment in semiconductors and climate tech.
Public-private partnerships facilitate government funding to cross the “valley of death” by making technology-sound projects feasible to scale.
We are on the precipice of commercial breakthroughs for technology like fission, long-duration storage, and carbon removal.[1]
Address now because: of foreign technology concentration. US industries abide by anti-trust law. A half dozen Chinese companies control a majority of solar cell production. If we care about anti-trust in telecom, why not care about solar?
Defense – We need to de-risk our military and federal supply chain.
Private semi-conductors for decades never made the investments needed to secure our national ambitions for a reliable chip supply chain.
Since the CHIPS bill was written, chipmakers have announced more than 40 projects worth nearly $200 billion in planned US investments.[2]
Historic defense R&D spending has a public track record of success.
DARPA is widely known to contribute to the launch of the internet, GPS, and Siri
NASA catapulted us to the moon and into global leader in space and computer technology
Address now because: Taiwan produces over 60% of the world's semiconductors and over 90% of the most advanced ones
Middle-Class Prosperity - a large, skilled, and diverse workforce lifts all boats.
We can fund technology hubs that middle-class citizens can afford to live in
Hubs will create jobs, bolster regional economic development, and position communities to lead in high-growth, high-wage manufacturing sectors.
$1B pilot program for additional spending in persistent economic distress communities
In the past, American manufacturing communities were hollowed out while cutting-edge industries moved to metropolitan areas.
Address now because: “Offshoring” played a major role in loss of factory production work in the US, leading to millions of jobs lost and reduced incomes in middle-America[3]
We need a sound industrial policy; through a combination of sector-specific government purchasing and financing agreements, we can provide the necessary “grease” to keep America on the technological frontier.
[1] https://www.oecd.org/publications/the-breakthrough-agenda-report-2022-692cdb6b-en.htm
[2] https://www.semiconductors.org/the-chips-act-has-already-sparked-200-billion-in-private-investments-for-u-s-semiconductor-production/
[3] https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R41712.pdf
