Trouble is, our calves are rarely weaned.
There is another way of nurturing fledgling industry and that is with private investors. Millions of people risked a lot of money bringing computers, Internet technology, airplanes, cell phones and pharmaceutical companies to the market.
Trying to portray government as the founder of these industries is an insult to the visionaries and venture capitalists who really made it happen. It is an insult because it implies that good people need to be prodded and they would not have the invention, industry or will to do good things on their own.
As I said before, one of the problems with government spending is that it gives a precedent, however feeble, for more government largess with hard-earned taxpayer money.
When the army bought an airplane from the Wright brothers for a legitimate military purpose that can hardly be compared to a huge byzantine system of subsidies, mandates, tax benefits and price supports for ethanol.
Look at other countries for examples of the "calves" that were supposed to grow up. Like, for example, phone companies. In the early days of the cell phone, many counties had more cell phone owners than in the US. Why? Because the old land-line phone companies were old and bloated calves still sucking off the government and enjoying their monopoly status. Cell phones provided better service.
Long ago, when federal government taxes were in the single digits, research was funded privately. They were wealthy men called "patrons" who funded scientists. Many great discoveries in the pure sciences were made this way. Today wealthy men are treated like cash cows by the government. The wealthiest 50 percent of taxpayers pay 96 percent of the tax burden, about 40 percent of GDP. Imagine how much better this country would work if they didn't have to pay that money to a system that doles it out to the most corrupt researchers doing junk science. Not honest scientists but zombie-like drones who got their position from political patronage, affirmative action or just plain dishonesty.
Department of Agriculture percent of the federal budget is about one half of one percent.
You obsess about .5 percent of the budget, I worry much more about Social Security and Medicare. I don’t know how old you are but are you planning to get Social Security and use Medicare?