Jim Cooper - a member of Congress from Tennessee says yes:
The United States may now risk falling behind in scientific
discoveries as other countries increase their science funding. We need
to get serious about science. In fact, maybe it’s time for researchers
to fight back, to return a comeback for every punch line.
Toward that end, we are announcing this week the winners of the first Golden Goose Awards,
which recognize the often-surprising benefits of science to society.
Charles H. Townes, for example, is hailed as a primary architect of
laser technology. Early in his career, though, he was reportedly warned
not to waste resources on an obscure technique for amplifying radiation
waves into an intense, continuous stream. In 1964, he shared the Nobel
Prize in Physics with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov.
Similarly,
research on jellyfish nervous systems by Osamu Shimomura, Martin
Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien unexpectedly led to advances in cancer
diagnosis and treatment, increased understanding of brain diseases such
as Alzheimer’s, and improved detection of poisons in drinking water.
Its worth pointing out that there is no "scientific research clause" in the Constitution, so justifying this activity requires a loose reading of constitutional language.
