At least back up your snark with an explanation of how that answers GP’s question.

I thought it was pretty obvious, and don't detect any snark.

A business/industry gets subsidies and is able to grow faster than it would have or just simply grow where nothing would before. Those businesses are then subject to taxes which the government collects and puts to use, which then benefits the populace at large.

It’s really not all that obvious to me. In particular you’re saying the reason to hand SpaceX nearly a billion is so I can do business with them faster because the subsidy reduces their time to market? If so, that’s a bogus argument in my opinion. I’d prefer a more direct mechanism like ownership and profit sharing. There is plenty of venture capitalists out there, if we can float WeWork, I’m sure there’s people who can float SpaceX and other perhaps more valuable to society businesses.

How much are you getting from the other awardees?

Businesses that don’t get subsidies pay the same exact taxes. And businesses pay very little tax in the first place. Finally, tax revenue isn’t an ownership stake in a company; no amount of money is.

> Businesses that don’t get subsidies pay the same exact taxes.

But the point of a subsidy is to create a business where one did not, possibly could not exist before. Therefore the tax revenue coming from companies created by subsidies is in addition to other businesses tax revenue, not replacing it.

What tax properly emulates gains from holding stake?

well first you have to imagine, what is a gain from holding stake? At the end of the day, is it really a claim on future profits? Maybe more reasonably just a stock that you can trade/sell for money. And what does one do with that money? Buy things I guess to increase your welfare.

Tax expenditure in the ideal setting would be spent on clean water, education, etc. things that increase your welfare. And successful companies paying lots of taxes hopefully increase the welfare of a country.

So it is kind of like taxes emulate welfare increase...is the way I see it.