Those who make over a certain amount should be able to designate exactly how they want it to be spent by the government.
Corporations can go further, in designating specific research to be funded a-la Sematech. It’s hard enough to give lots of money away. The least the government can do is give some tangible return on their investment. Accountability will be enforced. Any breakthrough will become an IPO and make the rich richer. Any failure will be a tax deduction and none of the venture capitalists will lose their mansions.
Day trading in the stock exchanges – by either Americans or foreign nationals – should be considered a felony. Investing is a long term enterprise. Day trading is robbery by definition. People who lose money in day trading should not be allowed to deduct the losses from their federal taxes; ditto for gambling losses. They’re both mental illnesses. There should also be an investigation into the role of computerized trading in the extreme volatility of the stock indexes, which happens intraday, day-to-day, and otherwise. The number of shares traded on any given day lately exceeds the number of shares traded in a week, ten years ago back before computer trading.