China wants more pecans. If we could prove to them that pecans are not just delicious, but healthy, sales would increase even more. So let's fund a study which is likely to produce such findings and- voila- nut sales overseas increase. Everybody wins.
Only they don't, because government cannot create wealth, it can only redistribute it.
That $1.2 million has to come from someplace- be it taxation, borrowing, or printing. It's money that might otherwise have been used in other sectors.
The nut industry might very well be the best place to put capital to work, but if it is, surely the pecan magnates of Beijing and Atlanta can fund their own studies into nut nutrition, why does the US taxpayer have to do it? After all, the USG really has no capital. Even if it were solvent- which it most certainly is not- the federal government is not really investing in industries when it fund such efforts, so much as redirecting money from one industry into another.
So what's the motivation behind this and the other $45 million in grants the Department is bragging about? Part of it, I would wager, is a desire to increase US exports to China. In the Administration's mind, the way to improve our trade deficit with our Creditor in Chief is to artificially subsidize target industries, while artificially manipulating our currency, credit markets, and unemployment rate. In other words- to centrally plan our way out of this mess.
If that's the strategy though- to try to beat the Reds at having government manage an economy, we might as well take down the American flag and hoist up one saying "Welcome Friends- Sorry About Supporting Taiwan for So Long."
I like pecans. I like Georgia. I am glad their nuts are selling well, especially in China, a country which could certainly stand to important something other than US dollars. But Washington managed commerce is not an effective solution. National economic planning didn't work in Moscow, will ultimately fail in Beijing, and will never work here.