How can we avoid spending money on lobbyists? Maybe the structure should be more VC-like?
Not for the purpose of creating long time state owned companies, but for cashing out when/if the investment is successful, just like VC's. This would both provide the state with money, removing the need to raise that same money via taxes, and hopefully also better align the incentives of the funding organisation by providing measurable goals.
Still, an argument for state subsidies, despite some inevitable degree of inefficiency, can be made.
I also don't think it's been conclusively shown that there have been "repeated successes with this style of investment". Demonstrating that would require knowing what the opportunity cost of the spending for these projects was, which is impossible. Claiming it's an open-and-shut case that these kinds of investments will yield positive results is just as ideological as you accuse dissenters of being.
Neither point has been supported in this discussion with anything beyond rhetoric.