Oh absolutely! But those are two completely different things.
> I would say most people would not care if we stopped using tax dollars to fund string theory research or finding 'habitable' planets, and a host of other luxury topics.
I agree. And then all of those people will be shocked to see $SOMECOUNTRY do crazy stuff in a decade when the US will be reduced to rubble or decline to irrelevance. Something like that almost happened with Goddard vs von Braun during and prior to WWII. Then, the US suddenly faced rocket interceptors, ballistic missiles, and jet fighters. The whole of US research, and in particular the Air Force, was reorganized after that experience.
> This standpoint is very specific to the world we live in today.
No, it's just very specific to your personal opinion. I take it you wouldn't have funded a patent clerk in Switzerland in 190x when he studied what happens when you sit in a train going close to the speed of light. I'm glad someone in the US listened to him, because otherwise it would have been Nazi Germany to build the atomic bomb that came from his insight.
The whole crux of the matter is that we don't know in advance what pays off.