I am not against government spending for dominance but I am just simply asking a question when the deficit spending is high and soon the line item for interest expense is greater than the defense budget, is dominance still more of a concern than say, I don't know, Govt unable to pay its debt or inflating away the currency?
Of course, in modern monetary theory GDP growth is one of the major factors keeping sovereign debt manageable [1], and NSF funding of about $9B [2] is about 0.2% of the national budget, and that money that is invested in basic research is generally found to significantly contribute to that economic growth [3], there are few ways I can think of to make the debt situation worse than to cut basic research.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-to-GDP_ratio
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation
[3] https://www.sfn.org/-/media/SfN/Documents/NEW-SfN/Advocacy/2...
brandolini's law in full effect