It appears as if President Trump is intent on reducing American innovation and scientific achievement, playing into China and Russia’s hands. Many of his policy moves make no sense at all in terms of advancing the nation’s scientific and military prowess. Trump and his supporters do not seem to believe in science and scientific expertise. His administration appears to be filled with Luddites who don’t understand the need for scientific innovation to keep America ahead of other nations in technology, military and commercial applications.
First of all, Trump has cut government funding dramatically for research and development for both government agencies and universities. Instead of cutting funding, he should have increased it, for money is the lifeblood of scientific advances in all fields. At this time, when we are in direct competition with China in terms of scientific innovation and technological progress, it is imperative that we spend as much money as necessary to keep abreast or ahead of China. Federal R and D funding increases productivity for our entire economy. Trump’s budget requests have gutted funding for both scientific and health research. Funds for the NIH and National Science Foundation which dispenses the money for basic research has been slashed 40-50 percent. Attempting to balance the budget on the back of scientific research is both nearsighted and foolish given what it portends for American science. The Trump administration does not appear to appreciate what scientific research does for the nation, in both the short and long term. According to economists Andrew Fieldhouse of Texas A and M and Karel Mertens of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, government R and D spending over the past 75 years has boosted U.S. productivity and economic growth. There has been a direct correlation between government R and D spending and productivity, more so than private R and D funding.
Aside from government spending on scientific R and D, just as important is the matter of excluding foreign scientists and students from coming to the United States to work in our laboratories, study in our universities and remain in our country to join our technology companies or form their own start-ups. Two thirds of tech employees at Silicon Valley companies are foreign born. 55 percent of American start-ups valued at $1 billion or more had at least one immigrant founders. 60 percent of the top American AI companies had at least one immigrant funder. Many of these tech founders came to the U.S. as students and then stayed on to work at tech companies or start new ones.
Immigrant entrepreneurs are acknowledged as one of the main drivers of innovation and economic growth in the U.S. Yet President Trump is banning foreign students from coming to the U.S. to study and stay on as entrepreneurs and become citizens. It’s almost as if Trump is purposely trying to destroy the American economy and make us a second-class power. He has no concept of how important STEM immigrants are to our science, technology and economy. China, India and the E.U. are chomping at the bit to get the educated immigrants we are rejecting to come to their schools and stay and work in their nations. According to Forbes and Statista, in 2016, China had 4.7 million STEM graduates, India 2.6 million, and the U.S. 568,000. In the years since, the disparity is likely even greater. How can we possibly keep up with the innovations and advances in science, technology and engineering without encouraging foreign STEM graduates to continue their educations in the U.S. and stay on and work here. Trump does not seem to understand this. How can he be convinced to recruit foreign STEM immigrants to come to the U.S. instead of banning them?
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Posted at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: foreign students, government funding, innovation, R and D, science, Trump
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Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020