The current administration has proposed draconian cuts to science research funding that would handicap the U.S. economy and reduce our quality of life for decades.

The proposal is for a nearly 20 percent cut to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and a nearly 20 percent cut to the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. We don’t yet know how much will be cut from the National Science Foundation, but the numbers for the NIH and DOE don’t bode well.

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Manjoo: Clean air was once an achievable political goal These three agencies are the dominant source of funding for basic research, which seeks knowledge and understanding of the fundamental aspects of nature and our universe and which has driven much of Silicon Valley’s innovation.

The fact is that basic research is the American economy’s lifeblood. Economists estimate that investments in basic research provide a 20 percent to 60 percent annual return by growing the economy—one reason that basic research has long enjoyed bipartisan support.

There are many examples of basic research discoveries that have improved our lives and led to new industries. Fundamental studies of the magnetism of atomic nuclei led to MRI; efforts to test Einstein’s theory of relativity led to atomic clocks, which made GPS possible.

The Human Genome Project, funded by the NIH and the DOE, was instrumental in the growth of the U.S. biotech industry, which in 2010 accounted for three-quarters of $1 trillion in economic output, or 5.4 percent of GDP. In 1996, an NSF-supported research project led students at Stanford University to create Google, which today employs 60,000 people.

The federal government has been, since World War II, the primary funder of basic scientific research. Arguably, it is this research investment that has led to America’s economic dominance, and which will be critical to our continued strength and progress.

There are those who hope that, in times of tight budgets, this responsibility could be handed off to the private sector. This is a big mistake. Corporate research investments are not a replacement for government funding.

It is generally agreed that while much applied research and development can be done (and already is) by industry, shareholders will no longer allow corporations to support basic science because it is difficult for companies to capture the value of the ultimate applications of basic research.

According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 80 cents of every dollar that industry spends on R&D goes to development, and only 20 cents goes to research, most of which is applied.

With many recent high-profile announcements about science philanthropy, some may wonder if philanthropy could replace a significant portion of government funding.

The Science Philanthropy Alliance recently conducted a survey of private funding of basic science in the U.S. The survey indicates that private sources gave $2.3 billion in funding to basic science in 2016. This is small, compared to the amount—about $40 billion—the federal government invests each year.

Philanthropists and foundations do play a critical role in science funding. They fund what the government cannot easily fund, such as earlier stage, riskier projects, which are sometimes funded in later stages by the government.

They can also be more nimble than the government. But the scale of science philanthropy is not large enough to replace government funding or even to make up for cuts of the size proposed in the administration budget.

Because R&D is the driver of economic growth, it is frightening that the U.S. has fallen from first in the world to tenth in the percentage of GDP spent on R&D.

An administration claiming to want faster growth should be spending more, not less on basic research.

Marc Kastner is president of the Palo Alto-based Science Philanthropy Alliance and former dean of science at MIT. He wrote this for The Mercury News.