I would put it somewhere around 80% of discretionary funding. I mean, look at NASA. Most of us here would agree that their mission is noble, but I will bet a private company accomplish everything they could accomplish in 20% of the time, for 10% of the cost, with greater reliability. And SpaceX has done better than that....
In this neck of the woods, the government does "nuclear energy research". These are the engineers that loudly proclaimed that [bleep] could not possibly happen. OOPS. And what has 1,000 plus engineering types produced for the country in the last 30 years? Not a single lousy thing.
Administering government "benefits"? yeah, that's been a great succes...
edited to add: Fu-ko-shima got bleeped? Really?
