Government has no business funding anything with our money.
Charitable donations used to be the responsibility of the individual. Now that government has taken over, corruption has exploded, and government hands out grants for the dumbest things imaginable, like arts, so some lazy unwilling to work pot head can take a picture of a cross in a glass of urine and call it art.
I do differ here, I consider Basic Research to be a infrastructure investment, but in the Hard Sciences and Engineering. I do agree with you with the arts though.