Fund SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) grants if you want science related growth.

Do not fund these career academics that want to study algae harvesting techniques or global warming or the effect of oil spills on the mating habits of sea urchins.

Goofball.

Most folks in government couldn't find their butts with both hands. Why give them money to channel into new anything?

Oh really Mr. Preezy. What happened to NASA? "Investments": Preezy just wants more money to pay off his bundlers.

"Invest" in government research and education, which translates into more money for the Democrat voter base that slithers around academia...never teaching, just sucking up taxpayer money doing questionable research on abstract "science and technology" that has no benefit or appeal to the real world.

Sorry but leftists have undermined science itself by refusing to acknowledge any data that does not support their various dogmas.

Private enterprise based R&R will do just fine.

Education is also best when private.

The left corrupted education.....to tears.

The "Free Market of Ideas" is the ticket.

What a hoot! The number of lib/progs in the entire country who have a true scientific/mathematic background and a command of the disipline's rigors can probably be counted on one hand. Science is not their strong suite by any means. Don't try this at home, libs! Leave it to the private sector.


Girl's Hubby

Science that can't generate interest from private investors is junk science.

News Flash, NYT: There is nothing the private business world loves to do more than provide backing for innovative new technology... provided it actually WORKS and produces results. Sound business models are just as important as research to bring technology to the consumer.

In a related story, the landscape is littered with bankrupt tech companies run by shysters whose primary research project was "How To Get Government Money From Elected Morons And Then Vanish Into The Night"

The government should, like in so many other matters, mostly shut up and butt out.

It isn't government that ought to be making those investments as they have a very, very, poor record of making wise investment choices. I believe that Romney has made statements to the effect that government should allow specific tax deductions for companies that invest their own money in research and development. This is a much better way to encourage science and technology than to just have the government throw money at politically connected companies.

The left really hates the business community. The obvious answer to our economy is a healthy growing economy, and these idiots reach for anything else as the solution. Pathetic.

Just any old "investment" Neil?

Or does it need to be good investment?

Ah, but Neil, that's where the problem lies! Anybody can invest, but not many people can make good investments.

Of course, you think a good investment is one where government power has rigged the payoff. But as far as science is concerned and real social utility, that doesn't count. That's called cronyism, because only the cronies benefit.


But then, that's why you support TelePrompTer.

Science is NOT the key to growth. LIBERTY to innovate is the key to growth. This means allowing people to try even unpopular things to either fail or succeed ultimately. Sure, you can get innovation by shoving tons of money on the chance that one of those ventures will ultimately succeed but it is not the most efficient way to proceed when everyone else in the world is competing in more intelligent ways.

If you really want to advance science in the US, stop protecting the Education Department teachers by opposing school voucher programs. Let K-12 education become competitive again.

You know someone is trying to snooker you when they write about government investments or government investing. When you see these terms just replace investments and investing with waste and wasting.

If there is money to be made off of scientific discoveries, why wouldn't private money be available for research? The NSF and other government grants support a lot of worthless projects that serve no other purpose than to subsidized the colleges and universities that receive the money.

Slight expansion of Obama's (and the NYT theme): More "Green Tech" propagandists shoving their jive down the throats of school children while bad-mouthing all corporations is the key to economic growth.

Since Neil F. Lane is a reporter for America's most influential newspaper, I wonder if he's heard anything about something happening in Benghazi, Libya.

"Science" investment used to mean for research & development. Under Obama, it means handing Billions to Buddies who pretend to start up a green business.... nothing at all to do with research... who pocket the cash & file bankruptcy.