Re: Welcome to 21st Century USA
That's not necessarily a contradiction. Lots of science has been paid for by government - but that doesn't mean it was a priority. If a government paid university researcher invents MRI or computers or jet engines on a shoestring budget - that doesn't mean that the research was a priority.
Even during WWII, when the value of superior technology should have been pretty obvious, the funding for things like radar or jet engines was miniscule and fought against by a military that would rather have more obsolete fighters than a jet engine or another battleship rather than a way to detect u-boats.
The only times when it was a government priority would probably be the Manhattan project and Apollo (although that was arguably a pork-barrel vote buy rather than science).