[Physicist]

Can you make a case that HEP deserves the billions of taxpayer money that it receives, without using the argument that many other unquestionably wasted billions are also spent on other things?

Yes, but to do a proper job of it would take more time than I have.

Instead I'll leave you with one thought: by my calculations, sometime in 1997 the additional wealth created by ONE spin-off technology of high-energy physics--the World Wide Web you are using now--became larger than the amount of money spent by the human race on the entire science of high-energy physics up to that point in time. (And it has exponentially diverged since then.) The science has paid its mortgage in full; the rest is gravy, and you're welcome.

(Many more arrows in that quiver.)

[coloradan]

Good enough. Thanks.