I’m very simple. I maintain that the functions of government are clearly enumerated in the Constitution. Not included is publicly funded research.

In my mind, the term "government science" is the most blatant oxymoron existing. By definition it is science by politics and once a matter becomes politicized, any rigorous validatable science is hopeless. That is a direct measure for how far a "government scientist" should be trusted.

In this current era, the two obvious hopeless examples are climate change and pandemic. Followed quickly by "political science". Or is that where it starts? The Age of Cognitive Dissonance.

As a professor, I am the rare person who funds his own research. That has cost me some in academic circles, but I won't be Robert Stadler.

Ditto 'mamaemma' and I would add, who are we paying to do this research. I recall a lot of Chinese being paid to do research and they were spying on us.

It used to be that all research was privately funded. That included Galileo onward. I think the only publicly funded research started with the military.

Interesting fact: did you know that George Washington was offered a repeating rifle like a Gatling gun for use during the Revolutionary War? He didn't take it because the inventor wanted a small fortune - more than $30,000 - for each one. When Washington became President, his annual salary was only $25,000 - which was still enormous for the time.

I think that its been shown that government-funded endeavors are in large part a waste of money. Why? Because there is little market accountability. There are no stockholders to appease and no sales targets to hit. There is no market feedback saying "customers don't like this product because of x" and no market feedback on how many units to produce or what price the market will bear.

There's also the little problem that typically the best inventors don't work for the government - they work for private industry because private industry pays them according to their genius. Thus what you get from government-paid workers is decidedly poor. This was shown during the Cold War with Russia - without the theft of US designs, they would never have stayed even close to us in the arms race.

Looks rather unanimous. I agree it is a misuse of taxpayers' dollars and, like so many other "programs", the political incentives always result in perverse outcomes. IMO markets always correct for bad behavior better and faster than government oversight does.

Yes! Let's keep it simple: Protect our borders, deliver our mail, and keep our roads and highways in good working order....isn't that enough?? It's time to take back our world! What would it be like to have all of that that money in our pockets - free to choose how our children are educated, free to support researchers we believe in, free to be.

Gov or Public funds should have no home in so-called research. It is not just a waste, those funds have a habit of being used to cut the legs right out from under me.

I believe that research funded by an institution with an agenda (and every institution has an agenda) gets corrupted to feed that agenda.

Thus I place much greater trust in research funded by oil companies or even tobacco companies than that tax-funded through government.

(I mostly agree with Mamaemma as well, though there are ways to shoehorn research expenditures into federal spending that does not violate constitutional limits. For example, research at a university in DC, or funded by and for the Defense Department.)

"public" funding is "govt" funding...think govt fraud...

Government handouts for academic scientific research should cease. Much of it goes down a rat hole, actually a mole hole. Many of those institutions financially pillage their students. they should go to the private sector for such funding.

Didnt work for the state science institute, and wont work any better here and now.