The bottom line is, unless the people in power see it making money for THEM DIRECTLY and IMMEDIATELY, they aren't going to fund it. Unfortunately, Astronomy is one of those fields that doesn't really give a high financial return unless you take YEARS to study the data, give it to the physics community and they take the lessons they learned to give to the government/investor's scientists to figure out how they can apply the findings to manufacturing and developing new technologies that will make them rich quick.
Astronomy has suffered this stigma since the glory days.
It's not about the discovery anymore.. it's about.. "How much money can this make me ?"