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It's difficult to get the general public to support taxes that will fund the repair of degrading bridges, leaking dams, and cracked roadways that may soon fail
by mreome 6y ago
It's difficult to get the general public to support taxes that will fund the repair of degrading bridges, leaking dams, and cracked roadways that may soon fail and actually KILL them. Do you honestly believe you’ll find widespread support for government funding of all major industry research?
Also, how does that investment get prioritized? What if the general public decides that some industry isn't worth investment, despite some people believing it is? Without patents, there is no way for the private sector to invest in R&D without just knowingly burning money.
I'm not saying government investment in research isn't a good idea. I think it is, and is something we should be doing more of, but it's not a replacement for patents.
- Jetrel 6y agoHonestly, our general public really hasn't had any direct say in how our tax dollars are spent for most of America's history. Outside of really rare individual referendums, the public doesn't sit down and decide on individual taxes like bridge repair/etc. We're not a democracy; we're a republic. If you look at polling, virtually everybody in our country would be in favor of repairing bridges/etc. Furthermore, both political parties in every major election for the past few decades have explicitly promised to enact massive funding for exactly this. Ergo - we're all voting in favor of major infrastructure funding - i.e. voting "yes, please, tax me and pay for bridge repair. Do it." The public will is absolutely behind this. Our real problem is we're terrible judges of character - we elected people who just pocketed the money, instead. Oops.