They Cut Science 20% and No One Noticed?
Science and Politics in The United States
After the World War II, the United States began investing in science in a big way. For most years after the war, public spending on scientific research increased faster than the economy as a whole and the growth of the technology industry in the United States followed. By the end of the 20th century the United States led the world in science and in technology business.
Since then, support for science in the United States has become progressively weaker, and the level of support was stagnant during the 2000s. Since the onset of the financial crisis and the great recession in 2008, spending on science has dropped in dollars, and taking into account inflation it has dropped even faster. A report issued last year by the Society for Science and the Public showed that federal funding for science in the United States is down nearly 20% in inflation-corrected dollars since 2010.
That number is worth pondering, nearly one fifth of publicly funded science has evaporated in less than 5 years. A study by the Kaufman Foundation released in February 2014 concluded that technology start-ups in the US also declined by roughly 20% during the same period of time. The rest of the world, however, has increased its support of science and technology. According to a report by the IEEE (a society of engineers) the US ranks 22nd among the 30 largest economies in the fraction of GDP which is spent on academic science research, and 23rd and of 30 nations in business funded research.
The most dispiriting thing to me is that in the United States almost no one in the public sphere seems at all alarmed at this dramatic decline in funding of science and technology. Our political institutions do not seem to recognize how much the success of the United States is tied to the science and technology prowess that is slipping away.
Strength in science gave the United States stature as an intellectual leader in the world and made its economy the most vibrant and dynamic. Relinquishing these rolls will inevitably lead to a greatly diminished United States.
