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The Trump administration is considering taking majority stakes in weapons manufacturers in addition to chip-maker Intel. That sounds both socialist and war-hungry, doesn’t it?
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Tuesday:
“Oh, there’s a monstrous discussion about defense… Lockheed Martin makes 97% of their revenue from the US government. They are basically an arm of the US government. They make exquisite munitions, amazing things that can knock a missile out of the air when it’s coming towards you…. What’s the economics of that? I’m going to leave that to my secretary of defense and the deputy secretary of defense; these guys are on it and are thinking about it.”
Lockheed Martin is already notorious for inflating costs on everything down to screws and nails. Would government ownership change that? Of course not. If anything, it could make production even less efficient. After all, government-run projects rarely deliver quality or efficiency—there’s a reason public housing became synonymous with “The Projects,” a social experiment that collapsed into social decay.
Which raises the obvious question: why isn’t the Trump administration winding down weapons spending, as he promised on the campaign trail? And more broadly, why is the government under Trump expanding and enriching itself just like it did under President Biden and Obama before him?