The fact is government subsidies misallocate scarce resources from productive, sound enterprises to inefficient, risky ones. Yes, our international competitors do subsidize, regulate, and tax their corporations heavily. But that is precisely why their economies have fallen so far behind the United States. The market only functions correctly when rational decisions are enforced by the discipline of liberated capital. Programs like the ATP continue to drain money from the federal treasury for little economic benefit.
Corporate welfare is supposed to offer a positive long-term economic return for taxpayers.
Corporate welfare such as ATP also corrupts the relationship between business and government. In this era of concern for campaign finance reform, eliminating corporate subsidies would go a long way to cleaning up the system. Last but not least, the Advanced Technology Program is unconstitutional. All such programs lie outside Congress's limited spending authority under the Constitution. Congress does not have the authority to spend funds to subsidize the computer industry, or the automobile industry, or any industry.