Funding: Capping, Sliding, Taxing

[David J. States]

I would be happy to take a 3% tax on my salary to fund basic
biomedical research if it were matched by:
	- all the physicians in the country
	- all the ancillary health care personnel
	- all of the hospital managers, health insurers and HMOs
	- all of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology
		companies
But if you are going to ask me to take a tax on my salary
or grant (sorry, but for alot of us there really is no difference), 
then I don't see why these others should get a free ride.  Afterall, 
without basic biomedical science, they would not be in business.

And I really do not see the rationale for equalizing funding among
researchers.  Some areas of research are far more expensive than 
others, and some areas are of higher (or lower) priority.  Economies 
of scale are real in science as anywhere else.  Finally, there are 
too many hidden subsidies to make such a system possible (state 
supported salaries, mixing of teaching and research funds, 
differences in endowments, varying institutional accounting practices
to name just a few).

David