"It’s a raid on American innovation that would deliver pennies to the Treasury while kneecapping the very engine of our economic and medical progress," writes Pipes. Getty Images

Washington is addicted to taxing success. Now, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is floating a plan to skim half the patent earnings from inventions developed at universities with federal funding. It’s being sold as a way to shore up programs like Social Security. In reality, it’s a raid on American innovation that would deliver pennies to the Treasury while kneecapping the very engine of our economic and medical progress.

Yes, taxpayer dollars support early-stage research. But the real payoff comes later—in the jobs created, cures discovered, and industries launched when universities and private industry tu

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