Independent of any other cuts to public funding of scientific research, a 55% reduction in the budget for the National Science Foundation would have no measurable effect on the well-being of the typical American over the next 10 years.
Historical federal support for scientific research has paid for itself through a substantial positive effect on long-run US productivity growth.
In a world in which most economic powers have programmes that give preference to their own strategic resources – for example, the Chinese have ‘Made in China’, and the Americans have ‘Buy American’ – the EU’s strategic independence would be substantially enhanced by establishing some form of European preference in public procurement in selected sectors.
A ‘Buy European’ programme of public procurement in selected sectors could be implemented in a way that would deliver greater EU innovation and growth over the next five years than in the absence of such a programme.
