> We'd get way more bang for our buck socially and scientifically by spreading those billion dollar endowments around, and properly funding state institutions l

> We'd get way more bang for our buck socially and scientifically by spreading those billion dollar endowments around, and properly funding state institutions like most other sensible countries. The Obamacare fiasco has proven to me that such approaches are impossible in the near term. The 2017 tax cut really drove it home. How are people not seeing this? A principally public approach is not viable. It could be, as amply demonstrated around the world. But roughly 50% of the American population rejects these schemes when they're forced to reckon with the costs. It's been this way since before Roosevelt. Social Security was a watered down, private labor market-focused program for the precisely the same political reasons Obamacare was. The exceptions are clearly and demonstrably anomalous. For example, the heyday of public universities come from a time when only a fraction of the population went to college, much of the land and capital assets were donated, labor was relatively cheap, and the burden on the public purse was negligible.