On Friday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “The Hill,” Rep. Ron Estes (R-KS) said that getting a 10% stake in Intel “is an interesting way” to get return on investment, and “I don’t want the federal government owning and controlling businesses. That’s the approach that China and some of the Communist countries want. So, we want to make sure that we still maintain our good free markets and free capital ownership in order to make sure that we continue to have the thriving economy that we have.”
Host Chris Stirewalt asked, “[M]y colleague Mick Mulvaney blew his stack earlier in the show talking about the 10% stake that the government is going to take in the struggling microchip maker Intel as a condition of receiving the monies appropriated by Congress to boost the industry. Why should the government own part of a microchip company?”
Estes responded, “I think one of those things that you get into is if you’re giving — handing out federal taxpayer dollars, you want to make sure that you get a return for that, that there’s a benefit for that. A lot of times, it’s the number of jobs, it’s the amount of investment that’s made in a community. This is an interesting way that President Trump’s brought up in terms of looking at ownership. Now, I don’t want the federal government owning and controlling businesses. That’s the approach that China and some of the Communist countries want. So, we want to make sure that we still maintain our good free markets and free capital ownership in order to make sure that we continue to have the thriving economy that we have.”
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