All of that was paid for my tax dollar
Except it wasn't.
From wikipedia: "SpaceX developed Falcon 9 with private capital as well, but did have pre-arranged commitments by NASA to purchase several operational flights once specific capabilities were demonstrated."
NASA payed them to transport cargo to the ISS. Both Falcon1 and Falcon9 were privately funded.
and costs far more than what NASA would have paid to do it.
You mean the NASA that's known for budget overruns? That estimated the shuttle program would cost $54M per flight that turned out to cost $409 million? (inflation adjusted)The NASA that couldn't come up with a new launch system for 14 years after the shuttle program was cancelled?
Do you think SpaceX operates an R&D division of astrophysicists to figure out how space travel even works?
Do you think astrophysicists is the science of spaceflight? Well, it shows you have no idea what you're talking about.
To build "cheap" prototypes and learn from their failure is their whole business model. And it's working. Their rockets don't fail on missions, they fail while testing.
I disagree. NASA is a government agency and by nature it's held down by bureaucracy and moves at a snail's place. There's no incentive for them to keep to a budget and timeline.
What NASA is really good at are robotics and observational science. I think they should be funded to put tech in space and on other celestial objects, and the dirty work of getting stuff off the ground should be delegated to private companies.