Those organizations and many others in biology and engineering are great, but they just can't throw around the kind of money the government can no matter how high dues go. For NIH, we're talking about $32 billion per year, or thereabouts. That's a crazy number that just can't be matched by anyone who can't print USD. The crazy thing is that the author of the piece suggests that the best course of action is that we start supporting candidates who promise to fund research. Sounds great until you realize that they don't exist. Pretty much ever. The only presidential candidate on the Dem side who mentioned it in 2008 was Clinton, and the only GOP member in the last couple election cycles was Gingrich. Everyone ridiculed him for his Moon base initiative, but at least it was something. Independent of party and other policy positions, I will support any candidate who throws their weight behind increased funding for NIH, NSF, et al.