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Article: Technology traps: defunding the megaprograms. (Capitol Ideas: An Agenda for the Second Hundred Days)
- Article from:
- Reason
- Article date:
- February 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Reason Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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My advice to the new Congress on technology policy is to kill government science megaprograms, get out of the technology-subsidy business, and double science and technology funding for universities through thousands of small grants. These priorities are particularly important for Republicans who find big-science wonders hard to resist.
With the possible exception of the Manhattan Project, government science megaprograms have a terrible record of return on the taxpayers' investment. Remember synfuels? This scheme to create gasoline from coal followed the classic, eight-step scenario for wasteful government megaprograms:
1) Scare the hell out of them. (What ...