What happens when we gut federal science funding?

Back at the beginning of his first term in 2017, Trump briefly tried to cut federal science spending. I wrote a pair of posts for Bloomberg saying that this was a bad idea. Here are some excerpts from the first of those: Support for science and technology is one of the key functions of a modern, rich-country government. Developed nations like the U.S. are at the technological frontier. It’s hard for them to grow by imitating or catching up to other countries, so in order to advance, they have to improve productivity. But productivity growth has been slowing noticeably…Research shows that most scientific and technological fields require more money and manpower to maintain the same rate of progress as time goes on…Unfortunately, federal research spending in the U.S. has leveled off… Even most free-marketers recognize that the government has a key role in basic research and technology. The private sector won’t pick up the slack -- private companies are great at turning research into comme

Back at the beginning of his first term in 2017, Trump briefly tried to cut federal science spending. I wrote a pair of posts for Bloomberg saying that this was a bad idea. Here are some excerpts from the first of those: Support for science and technology is one of the key functions of a modern, rich-country government. Developed nations like the U.S. are at the technological frontier. It’s hard for them to grow by imitating or catching up to other countries, so in order to advance, they have to improve productivity. But productivity growth has been slowing noticeably…Research shows that most