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They are government funded but have exactly nothing to do with governance. They could be privately funded and accomplish the exact same things.
by wheelerwj 10y ago
They are government funded but have exactly nothing to do with governance. They could be privately funded and accomplish the exact same things.
- MPSimmons 10y agoIn a mathematical sense, yes, every citizen who gives a certain amount of tax money to the government to pay for research bodies could, instead, give money straight to some sort of central body to distribute it to the same various groups. But they wouldn't. And you know it. Even the Science Philanthropy Alliance (http://www.sciencephilanthropyalliance.org/what-we-do/resources/faqs/ http://www.sciencephilanthropyalliance.org/what-we-do/resour...), which funds researchers using privately-donated money, says that taxes are necessary to have scientific progress.
- wheelerwj 10y agoI didn't say anything IF taxes were important or IF people's WOULD pay them. And yes, we are talking about semantics (mathematical sense). People couldn't give money to the DoD and accomplish the same thing, nor could they give money to DHS or any of the other Executive Departments. NASA is an independent, federally funded, civilian agency. The part of it that is Federal, is its budget.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]