There should be more privatization where national interests are involved.
Instead of the ACA for example,the government could have taken a 51% stake in health insurers (forget subsidizing them, own them!) and we the voters would elect politicians to oversee health insurance instead of hoping and trusting CEOs.
So many problems are caused by companies chasing short-term shareholder satisfaction. If the government is a significant shareholder, then guess who they'll try to make happy?
The sheer threat of the government buying a controlling interest and running your company might make some companies behave in the interests of the public more. Especially, if the government is also engaging in policy to harm the company's revenue before buying stakes in it.
I'm not saying the US should be a full-on communist or socialist economy, nothing like that. This is capitalism. We the people get to use or tax dollars to our benefit. Think about it, the US sells bonds right? what if it paid for them by investing in company stocks and derivatives? that's revenue right?
The whole pearl-clutching over ideological extremes doesn't serve the public or the economy's interest.
Some privatization is good, none is great if everyone was decent and honorable. but in this society, moderate privatization where there is potential benefit to the public and national security makes sense.
Companies with government investment should also be prohibited from making political donations, so any company that is trying to sway elections faces the threat of the next administration buying stakes in them to prevent that behavior.
This could be the missing 5th estate that can make democracy last.
If the government takes over those companies and they don't do well, it means lost jobs which means lost elections too. There's a risk calculus to be had.
The current policy of never intervening or taking ownership in companies.. unless they are "too big to fail and start failing" only benefits the companies.
At the least, without darpa the whole Bay Area machine would not exist today, so it’s at least necessary if not sufficient.
Not just darpa but nih, nsf, doe, onr, arl, nasa, and the national labs are definitively necessary causal dependencies on of every company and industry driving US national pride and all of the most valuable companies.
Even if the firm never takes a grant, their talent, supply chain, and component pipelines all depend on these grantor agencies thoughtfully allocating taxpayer capital at the national level.