America’s ‘Miracle Machine’ is in desperate need of, well, a miracle

IAS Trustee Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, and Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, write in the Washington Post that while investing in basic research typically doesn’t make sense for a business, it has been a winning strategy for our nation. For 60 years, the federal government has invested roughly a penny on each dollar in the federal budget into research at universities and research centers. In turn, these institutions have produced a torrent of discoveries and trained generations of scientific talent, fueling new companies and spawning new jobs.

Read more from Schmidt and Lander on why America's "Miracle Machine," powered by federal investment in science and technology and regularly churning out breathtaking advances, should be embraced and supported by the Trump administration and Congress.