The Problem with Funding Scientific Research

First some background, to anyone who knows something about basic economics this is a review, to everyone else, there is the problem in economics of a "public good" (the best example being a fireworks display) where it is non-rival and non-excludable. Aka its hard to limit who sees them and who does not and one person watching them does not take away from another person watching them. The problem with this is who provides it? You have a problem with "free riders" where people do not pay for it, but still get to enjoy it. The first conclusion everyone leaps to then is government should pay for it.

In recent years there has been a huge push that scientific research is a public good and therefore should be provided funds by the government. The problem is as soon as it's government funding people tend to be much more wasteful of money and lets face it the federal government nor our state government can afford much of anything these days. So the big question is...... is there a way to still do research and not have the government adding to their deficit to do it?

This video does a great job of giving an alternative, one that is literally right under our nose.