Industrial policy is failing, and not just in Washington. Wherever it's found, industrial policy is producing wasted resources, distorted incentives, and fragile outcomes that collapse the moment political support shifts or market realities intrude. Just look at the similarities between Georgia's famous film-industry tax credits and a few of the federal government's favorite projects. If film credits are the most transparently wasteful form of industrial policy, Intel is the most consequential. These cases all differ in detail but share a common logic: Industrial policy tries to engineer outcomes while ignoring processes.