[nomilk]

I see your point, that donors could influence political appointees to nix certain research topics for their own benefit.

How often does that actually happen, and wouldn't other institutions pick up the slack in most cases? (i.e. high value research doesn't cease to be high value just because one type of grant or institution refuses to fund it; it would therefore be attractive to other institutions/researchers)

Some benefits of having political appointees in the loop are that the pubic perceives (not necessarily 'gets') greater value from public research funding, and the people responsible for the funding (political appointees) are closer to the actual spending and are more involved in the allocative process, which should mean fewer expensive, hard-to-justify topics.