Versus, what? No public funding? No private utilization of public research? Public research should fall in the public domain, free of IP and open for any use.

Versus, what? No public funding? No private utilization of public research? Public research should fall in the public domain, free of IP and open for any use. If anything, we should be doing more of this... create dedicated academic R&D funding streams by taxing established or dying industries in order to publicly explore new fields, and use X Prize-style programs or NASA's COTS/CRS programs to incentivize private commercialization. America needs jobs, what's better than creating new industries? Plus, public investment in R&D has a good track record. This study from 1980 [1] indicates a $17 return over 18 years for every $1 invested in NASA - 1700% ROI. Returns depend on programs and the administration in office, but similar numbers can be obtained from other programs (NOAA and agricultural, military and medical research, etc). R&D is speculative, but most programs do much better than breaking even. [1] https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/economics.html https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/economics.html