> Might this be a case where the best resolution would be to have the government (which is at least partially funding nearly all of these papers) step in and add a ledger of papers as a proof of investment?

I feel that we're halfway there already and are gaining ground. Does Pubmed Central [0] (a government-hosted open access repository for NIH-funded work) count as a "ledger" like you're referring to? The NSF's site does a good job of explaining current US open access policy [1]. There are occasional attempts to expand the open access mandate by legislation, such as FASTR [2]. A hypothetical expansion of the open access mandate to apply to all works from /institutions/ that receive indirect costs, not just individual projects that receive direct costs, would open things up even more.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/

[1] https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2016/nsf16009/nsf16009.jsp#q1

[2] https://sparcopen.org/our-work/fastr/

Well, some research venues (and publication venues) are not government-funded, and even if they are indirectly government funded, it's more of a sophistry than something which would make publishers hand over copies of the papers.

Also, a per-government ledger would not be super-practicable. But if, say, the US, the EU and China would agree on something like this, and implement it, and have a common ledger, then it would not be some a big leap to make it properly international. Maybe even UN-based.

That's a pretty big "if" though.