I think it'd be a distraction to the thread to go into it. But, (perhaps from being a Southerner) I'd like more local focus and less federal. I'd like to pay more state and local taxes and less federal tax. And, I'd like state and local entities to take on more of the pork spending and the federal government to confine itself to issues that trully require a national approach. Of course, that won't be happening. The feds will keep taking my money and spending it in Alaska. Not that I don't want good things for Alaskans; the approach has helped a great deal, I think, in bringing prosperity to historically very poor parts of the country. But, it is also a system that is open to and victim of a lot of public, bald-faced corruption. These are capital projects that are supposed to yield a return (be it financial, educational, cultural, spiritual, or what have you), but we have a completely arbitrary way of choosing which ones should be funded and which ones we should not. At least, if it was local, decision-makers could be closer to the impacts of all projects and put more emphasis in decisions-making on the projects' impacts than on who has scratched who's back. So, for your unfair question, my ideal world wouldn't give federal money to any of those, but would give Illinois and especially Chicago money to all three. If I had to give federal dollars, I don't think I'd have a preference between science, music, and art.
Government funding in these things are hard to measure. But I do think they're more of a luxury item rather than a necessity So in a sense, I agree with McCain there could be more important uses for the 3 mil that are more dire than just allowing people to see the stars. And in our current state of the economy, it may very well be luxury we cannot afford. That said, the reason we're in this predicament in the first place is that we shoved billions upon billions of dollars down the toilet in Iraq. McCain should look there to cut spending before going for projectors.
