The federal government just wrote a $2T stimulus check of funny money they pulled out of thin air to (largely) cover for their incompetence in handling the pand

The federal government just wrote a $2T stimulus check of funny money they pulled out of thin air to (largely) cover for their incompetence in handling the pandemic. But $10B (that's a factor of 200x less!) for basic physics research is somehow too expensive? Our priorities are way off.