This is very misleading. US government heavily taxes people and organizations and spends on certain projects. But if people had more resources left to themselves, they could spend some of it on the same projects US gov spends it on.
On top of that, US gov has all kinds of laws and regulations that make it difficult to do certain valuable things. For example, if companies in the same industry come together to do something valuable, they might break antitrust laws.
Government might also make it prohibitively expensive to do something and then they step in to do it themselves - you see it with pharma research.
On top of that, US gov has all kinds of laws and regulations that make it difficult to do certain valuable things. For example, if companies in the same industry come together to do something valuable, they might break antitrust laws. Government might also make it prohibitively expensive to do something and then they step in to do it themselves - you see it with pharma research.