I have been reading opinions from different sides of the political spectrum about government funded research and I honestly can't come up with a simply 'yes' or 'no' about it.
obviously in a truly free market, the government wouldn't drive innovation, entrepreneurs would, so from that standpoint its pretty black and white...
on the other hand, if the government wasn't allowing private companies to bid competitively on government funded research/needs then it would be like the old days when all government R&D was done by the government and its employees. This of courses bloats the size of the government and completely removes the private sector from the equation.
So while I don't think the government has a right to spend billions a year on research, the fact will always remain that the government has a bunch of needs that it has to fill and I would rather it include the private sector in that process than do it all in-house.
what are other people's thoughts?
obviously in a truly free market, the government wouldn't drive innovation, entrepreneurs would, so from that standpoint its pretty black and white...
on the other hand, if the government wasn't allowing private companies to bid competitively on government funded research/needs then it would be like the old days when all government R&D was done by the government and its employees. This of courses bloats the size of the government and completely removes the private sector from the equation.
So while I don't think the government has a right to spend billions a year on research, the fact will always remain that the government has a bunch of needs that it has to fill and I would rather it include the private sector in that process than do it all in-house.
what are other people's thoughts?