“What would be your counterargument ? “
University Researchers are almost singularly focused on government grants.
Government Labs are huge money-wasters, with some small fraction of research being useful.
Much “research” isn’t research at all.
Not all “research” is good.
Government Grants and government-backed student loans are two legs of the liberal ivory-tower. It must be cast as being crucial - and if it’s cut or not increased exponentially the conveyor of non-functioning liberal minds out into government and the body politic collapses.
Stem cell research, and almost all other “science” experiments can be funded by private industry NOT by our tax dollars. Actually stem cell research, except for adult stem cells, should not be done at all. Who cares how many galaxy making clouds there are in the Milky Way, it affects us how? The only science worth government funding is weapons research. Who cares if a couple of thousand overpaid scientists sucking up our tax money vote for Obama? They all vote for socialists now anyway, that won’t change.
The Dems have cut sci/tech funding FAR more than the ‘pubbies have (guess who killed the space program), in order to have more funds to channel into welfare. I seriously doubt that the ‘pubbies/Tea Party have any intentions of cutting SERIOUS sci/tech research at all. They might cut some of the funding for “boutique” research (like global warming/fetal stem cells). I would think that any serous scientist already knows this.
NASA contributed a wide body of science for decades, today they focus on islam.
The nuclear labs like the Oakridge or Idaho are being dismantled and decommissioned. Not because of lack of funding...but because of ‘treaties’ the left believes in.
Science and research at the government level should go into defense. All the rest should be in the free market system.
I worked on one of the government research stations decommissioning two of the 1950’s nuclear reactors there. It was a bit of a pet project because the goal was to be able to return the site to ‘green space’ and safe for residential homes. The ‘government’ science people viewed the project as being able to carry them to retirement. They stopped the project at every chance they could. While we, the lead contractor, were the one’s moving forward and accomplishing the goal. Millions of dollars were wasted due to the government science folks involved.
This is not a matter of people not understanding science or the research lab, or the field lab. It is a matter of science not being budget conscious. Should we have the technology and protocols to cleanup a nuclear contaminated site? In the era of a terrorist dirty bomb...yeah...you bet we should. Was the price to have those protocols, worth the extra decades it took us to cleanup the project site? Government Science folks goal: retirement from project they thought impossible to do Independent Contractor goal: show it could be done
At this point I would guess that if you stopped a hundred people on the street not one would mention gov. spending on science as a big concern.
Instead they wonder how they can pay for gas and groceries at the same time, whether they will have a job next week or next month, and hope no expensive emergencies arise.
Science and technology will do quite well with private funding and a good economy can provide those funds.
Between the anti mullah Persian scientists who escaped Iran, the anti Communist Chinese scientists who escaped China, and the religious economically conservative American scientists I work with; I am unsure where you get the impressions that scientists are liberal.
It’s not a full reply, but one thing you can point out is that under the stewardship of the Obama administration, a greater and greater proportion of the NSF budget has been going to education projects (of dubious value — for instance we don’t actually need more Ph.D.’s in mathematics, but there are lots of NSF programs trying to increase the numbers, the value-added by trying to get more women to chose careers in STEM disciplines is unclear) and to pick winners in terms of areas of research which will be important (all sorts of solicitations with the adjectival particle cyber- in their titles, and attempts to force interdisciplinary work on the scientific community), rather than on supporting basic research on its own terms. Whether this is really the Obama administration’s doing, or whether it’s simply bureaucratic fashion that will go on regardless of who’s in the White House is unclear.
Science research has already declined significantly under Obama. Just look at our manned space program, we don’t have one any more.
Under conservatives, STEM funding would increase, but “social science “ funding would likely be cut.