Originally Posted by
Atmosfear
Well, I agree that 2% is a sufficiently small portion of the Federal budget that it's not worth battling over in Washington.
However, the whole system is embarrassing. The Federal Government gives gigantic grants to researchers at Universities, who turn around and license their own developments to their privately-held start-ups for pennies, and then sit on all the profits. The taxpayers get no equity out of the deal; it's a bad investment. Of course, I'm not advocating the government start making money on the science budget; they need to stop the spending and let private firms and non-profits handle it.
I agree that we do need an effective commercial system, and I would like to see the government put its money toward making that system run rather than making direct investment (this would, of course, require less money--which should be returned to the taxpayers who paid it.)
Bookmarks