A while back, I wrote a piece I called "The AK of ARs" to talk about a general purpose AR build to hand out to your neighbors in case of a temporary societal collapse: https://darklordofoptics.locals.com/post/4262131/the-ak-of-ars
Matt @TheMarksman put together his own version of the gun here: https://www.everydaymarksman.co/equipment/the-rack-rifle/
Somewhat disappointingly, we are mostly in agreement. Still, it is a good read. He approached some of this from a different angle and largely arrives to the same conclusion.
I have been looking around to see what amount of money it would take to get a properly equipped AR and stumbled onto this one from Radical Arms at PA: https://alnk.to/clVqsUc for $420 with proper furniture and free floating handguard.
Put GLx 2x on top of it https://bit.ly/44IHQb0 and for $800 plus tax and shipping you are all set.
That's mindbogglingly inexpensive given that these are actually pretty decent guns. The trigger is a basic GI, but that smooths out over time and can be replaced in the future anyway. The barrels are perfectly adequate for the job. These are budget guns, but they are not cheaply made.