There’s a Huge, Sneaky, Bipartisan Win Hiding in Plain Sight | Opinion

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In his inaugural address, President Donald Trump suggested something much bigger, bolder, and better than he probably realized. If both political parties can catch on to it, there’s a wide-open pathway to a win that will make Americans more prosperous for decades to come.

What he said is that we would plant the American flag on Mars. Let’s unpack that. It means that Trump was committing to the current U.S. plan to send humans in about 10 years. But there’s a ton of science to do first: NASA is currently pursuing innovations in the air, food, water, power, shelter, spacesuits, and communications that astronauts will need. So, what that really means is that the federal government needs to keep funding research and development (R&D) in next-generation telecommunications and computing equipment, materials science, botany, and electricity generation and storage; and Trump just declared that he’s all in on that.

And that is amazing.

The NASA InSight spacecraft launches onboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas-V rocket on May 5, 2018, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California,

ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images

Because here’s a dirty little secret about the United States government: it is great at this kind of thing. In fact, funding science is the single most successful thing that the American government does or has ever done.

The last time we made this kind of major push on space technology was the 1960s moon shot. All that did was create the modern world. Everything in computing from the chip to the mouse came from that American taxpayer-funded science. So did a staggering range of technology from camera phones to CAT scans, LED lights to sneakers, home insulation to headsets, artificial limbs to smoke detectors.

It’s the same story everywhere you look: when Americans invest in basic scientific R&D, the returns are astonishing. The Human Genome Project brought back an economic return of 141:1–that is, for every tax dollar put in, the U.S. economy generated $141. Just a tiny fraction of our grandparents’ tax dollars put into public science gave us the digital recording technology behind all of our music, video, and data storage; fluorescent lights; communications satellites; advanced batteries; lasers; Google; GPS; solar panels; and robots. Oh yeah, and the internet.

But if all this is so amazing and has such a giant payback, why has the United States gone from spending about one percent of our gross domestic product on federally-backed science in the 1960s to one-third of that today? There are three issues holding us back—let’s call them the Ester Dean Effect, the Bamboo Pattern, and the Gila Monster Conundrum.

The first problem is that when the federal government funds basic research, it’s private companies and the broader economy that benefit. This is what economists call “spillovers” and what we call the Ester Dean Effect. Dean is the songwriter behind hits by the biggest recording artists on Earth, like Rihanna, Beyoncé, and Kelly Clarkson. She’s one of the most successful musicians in history, but if you’ve heard of her, you’re in rare company.

Public sector science works the same way. It’s the engine behind private sector innovation—about one-third of U.S. patents rely on federal research—because the government can invest in the basic science that the private sector usually won’t (economists recognize this as a basic market failure: companies don’t want to give competitors a free ride off their foundational work, so they under-invest in basic science and focus on applied work that it piggybacks on). So, the federal government is Ester Dean: the hidden star behind the stars, doing the work that leads others to glory. Critical, but unsung.

The second problem is the Bamboo Pattern. Bamboo grows and spreads its roots for years underground. It then explodes out and becomes the fastest-growing woody plant on Earth—and one of the most useful materials in existence. That’s the story with science too. The lag between federal science investment and societal return is often measured in decades.

Take the technology behind the Covid vaccines: a failed clinical trial from the 1960s led to work on modifying messenger RNA in the 1980s-2000s—funded through hundreds of millions of dollars of National Institutes of Health grants—which led to the inoculation campaign in the 2020s that saved 2.4 million lives and generated $6.5 trillion in economic value.

That’s an incredible success story, but it’s not a timescale that works well for politicians whose terms are measured in two-, four-, or six-year increments. Especially when voters want to know what good you did for them right now.

The third problem is the Gila Monster Conundrum: the fact that basic science is often such an inviting target for ridicule. So much research just sounds…funny. Projects like the U.S. Air Force spending half a million dollars to study a species of shrimp or an investigation into whether pigs can breathe through their butts become fodder for gentle parody from fellow scientists, mocking “Golden Fleece” awards from politicians who think they see a rip-off, or open war on the National Science Foundation as members of congress search for seemingly frivolous projects to kill.

But funny-sounding research is often how basic science works. The shrimp study is being used to improve football helmets and military body armor. The butt-breathing study could help human patients with respiratory failure or compromised airways. And the Gila Monster thing? Federal research on that lizard’s spit led to the development of Ozempic.

So, with that trifecta of problems constantly strangling federal support for science, why is there such an incredible opportunity now?

Because for decades, while Democrats have generally supported expanding federal research funding, Republicans have been more skeptical, and much more likely to call for broader cuts that would also slash science support.

But now, it looks like the winds are shifting. The leaders of Trump’s brain trust are focused on trying to increase U.S. innovation and economic growth. Elon Musk has clearly gotten through to Trump on Mars. Vivek Ramaswamy, a former biotech executive, has been pushing to shift more defense funding into research. Trump just announced Stargate, a $100 billion A.I. Initiative with OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank. And in the giant budget bill that Republicans are crafting that aims to massively reduce spending on programs, science is the dog that didn’t bark: their 50-page list of hundreds of options for cuts contains exactly one relatively tiny rollback that would affect research.

To be sure, the vibe may not last or apply to all areas of science. The Trump administration may take a more critical eye to the work of some agencies—for example, the National Institutes of Health, which funds most biomedical research in the U.S.

But the opening is there. Trump and his team are focused on American economic competitiveness. Democrats are looking for wins in a Republican-led Washington, ones that will resonate with their core supporters who are high-education and very pro-science.

So, there is a rare opportunity for a bipartisan agreement to preserve, and even make further strategic infusions to, investment in basic R&D. If they can see it, our kids will never stop thanking us.

Matt Robison is a writer, podcast host, and former congressional staffer.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

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