I don’t oppose absolutely “Basic Research” grants or assistance with such programs, with the proviso that ALL discoveries within such categories must be “public domain”, not subject to patent or copyright.
Other than that, I agree: the most involvement the gov’t ought to have in business decisions ought to be allowing deductions of such research for tax computation. Even there, I would much rather see corporations pay no income tax at all, and instead raise the tax on dividends to compensate.
I don’t believe in raising other taxes to compensate. The government needs to survive on less money.
One- merge all welfare into a single program, not 80+
Have one bureaucracy that hands out a cash sum, same in all states (states can add to it if they want) but the people have to show up in person once a month to get it. It would be about the same/ a bit more than all the welfare they already get but in cash. It would be enough where we could even use it for the unemployed instead of having a separate program.
Bureaucracy swallows more than half the welfare budget, so doing this would save mega billions without even reducing the actual benefits.