Washington, DC—The Task Force on American Innovation (TFAI) – a coalition of companies, university associations, and professional societies that support sustained and robust federal investment in basic science research – issued the following statement on the release of President Trump’s fiscal year 2021 (FY21) budget proposal:

“To ensure America remains a global leader, President Trump should commit to fully funding our innovation economy.  Unfortunately, this budget does not do that. America needs investments in scientific and engineering research to remain a world leader in innovation. While TFAI commends the Administration’s proposed prioritization in its FY21 budget request of artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum information science (QIS), prioritizing such investments could come at the expense of many other vital basic research programs and not only diminish U.S. leadership in S&T broadly but also slow progress in AI and QIS. Both these technologies depend on continued advancements in other fields.

“In particular, we are concerned that President Trump’s FY21 budget proposal recommends: a 28% cut to NIST; a 7% cut to the NSF; an 11.8% cut to NASA science programs; and a 16.6% cut to Department of Energy Office of Science.  This budget also proposes a 10.9% cut to the Department of Defense’s Basic Research and another 13.5% cut to the department’s Science and Technology programs. These reductions will greatly harm our country’s ability to remain a leader in innovation and will likely have negative impacts on America’s economy, national security and global competitiveness.

“As our Task Force noted last year with the release of the report, ‘Benchmarks 2019,’ America is in danger of finding itself in second place as ‘China is on pace to surpass the US in R&D expenditures.’ This poses serious challenges to our country’s economic and national security future.

“TFAI encourages Congress to secure and protect America’s leadership in innovation, energy, security, and national defense by pursuing the highest possible funding levels for scientific and engineering research.”