Lawrence Livermore to attempt Fusion Ignition

Anyone else reminded of the movie "Real Genius" with Val Kilmer?
I'm glad that they are trying to generate fusion. I have high hopes that commercially available fusion will be practical in my lifetime.

After reading this article, I'm having a hard time deciding (and this is from someone who promotes Science and technological breakthroughs), whether I believe millions of this country's tax dollars should fund a project that will allow the gov't to "in a laboratory the size of a football stadium, to simulate the pressures and heat of a nuclear explosion, allowing nuclear weapons scientists to study the performance and readiness of the country's aging nuclear arsenal without actually detonating a nuclear device."
Although I find it extremely interesting that engineers "have assembled the framework for a network of 192 laser beams, each traveling 1,000 feet (300 meters) to converge simultaneously on a target in one-thousandth of a second on a hydrogen fusion pellet, the size of a pencil eraser..."
...I believe that we can in the short term spend the money on something 'closer to home' like, oh I don't know, Social Security??!
Call me a Socialist.