Yes, companies pay taxes. Company owners also pay taxes on dividends, capital gains or distributions. Most taxes are paid by minority of relatively well off people.
My point is that SEMATECH shows you can have a voluntary consortium where different parties fund an organization and then collectively benefit from it.
Government does that, but on a more general level and it's not based on voluntary interaction (you must pay taxes, otherwise if you resist arrest you will be murdered).
I'm responding to people who complain how companies are ripping the public off, when in reality it's the government that takes almost half of GDP in developed nations.
If the government took less in taxes, then companies would have more left over to fund a voluntary consortium which would do similar things that NIH and NSF do.
