My point wasnt that they were equivalent investments, just that they were investments and its pretty offensive to suggest that founders would be "mooching" because you dont happen to agree with the basis of the investment.
It's mooching precisely due to the nature of the inequivalence. One is the voluntary, contractual exchange of capital for equity; the other is glad-handing politicians giving away money taken from other people in order to foster a pro-business image through anti-market means. Participating in the former is commerce, participating in the latter is rent seeking. If this sort of consequence-free pay day doesn't count as mooching, then nothing does.
