Not even American but the underfunding of NASA is criminal, firstly because iirc it has something like a 5:1 return on its funding when you account for the economic benefits of all the research it does that filters into the private sector.

Secondly because it has great PR that really gets people engaged with space science. Before James Webb the ESA launched two telescopes of similar important, one radio one that produced the best map of the CMB we have to date and another one where I can't even remember what it does just that it was also groundbreaking in its field/spectrum. Which is the point, we all should have been excited about those telescopes when they launched but I can't even remember their names or what one of them even did, I can remember James Webb though because NASA did the PR work and that's incredibly telling.