The marriage between public and private enterprise in scientific fields has long been a core tenet of the United States. In Article I of the Constitution, Congress granted the power to promote and protect copyrights and individual intellectual property. The government also has a history of leading scientific endeavors when not feasible or profitable for private interests, with the first public scientific agency being formed under the Jefferson administration in 1807. This relationship has evolved over 250 years, but it has remained integral to the progress of American government and industry throughout the nation’s history.
The current administration’s recent breaks with the status quo, however, are throwing into jeopardy generations of institutional scientific knowledge, the health and safety of American citizens and our allies, and the future of science as an accessible tool for the public good. At the nation’s 250th anniversary, amidst revolutionary technological advancements, the U.S. faces a pivotal inflection point in the longstanding relationship between government institutions and industry-driven science.
The Role of Industry-Driven Science in Government
The federal government ballooned in size and function since the beginning of the 20th century. As its functions become more diverse and technology becomes more advanced, the government cannot directly fulfill all of its responsibilities absent partnership with the private sector. In fact, it never has.
The military is the best example, with private contractors composing 18% of the Continental Army’s supply network during the American Revolution, and names like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon being synonymous with defense contracting today. The caveat to this is that these contractors can never perform “inherently governmental functions” directly. A company can build warplanes or missiles for the war effort, but American service members must be the ones flying and guiding them. Private companies can collect evidence and provide consultation, but government attorneys bring charges and government officials pass final judgment on how agencies can act.
The involvement of market enterprise can be beneficial, as private companies not only compete to outbid each other — reducing the taxpayer burden — but also improve efficiency by enabling the government to outsource the highly technical and short-term nature of many of these contractors’ work. In fact, in recent decades, the size of the federal workforce has remained roughly flat, but federal spending and population have grown. The gaps have been filled by contractors, who now outnumber federal employees two to one.
Despite the benefits of government outsourcing to contractors, the picture is not entirely positive. In a 2009 presidential memorandum, the Obama administration observed that overreliance on contractors could lead to institutional memory loss, inefficiency, waste, poor performance, and a lack of accountability. Although the administration outlined clearer rules, there was still an increase in contract spending the following year, and it is a number that continues to rise today.
The threat to public safety here is that the lines have become blurred, and as a result, some critical functions of government formally rest with public agencies and actors, but are still reliant on private execution. The most high-profile example of this is one of Elon Musk’s companies, SpaceX. The government, especially the military, become increasingly dependent on SpaceX satellites as well as data transfer and storage systems.
Although the government still has the final word on public action, SpaceX deploys and maintains many of its own satellites, and the government simply pays to use them, meaning the operational keys technically lie with a private company. A satellite or service being used — but not actually owned and operated — by the federal government could be unilaterally deactivated or interfered with by a private company. Regardless of repercussions after the fact, a decision like this, in a worst-case scenario, could cost American service members their lives and potentially change the course of a future conflict.
This type of situation is not without precedent. A recession in 1907 led to J.P. Morgan wielding an inordinate amount of power when he rallied other bankers and institutions, in addition to pledging his own money, to stabilize the economy. Although met with initial acclaim, it was quickly understood that having one unelected man or private corporation decide which businesses to save and which to cut in the wake of a recession was incredibly dangerous, and so the Federal Reserve was formed in 1913.
Science as a Public Good: The Evolution of Government-Backed Research
The federal government has a history of identifying instances like the 1907 recession and creating institutions to assume responsibilities and protect critical infrastructure and interests. Another notable example was the push to protect scientific research in the wake of World War II.
American research and development can broadly be divided into three categories: “basic research,” “applied research,” and “experimental development.” The first of these, basic research, became nationally important during World War II. Often expensive and with no guaranteed returns, basic research is unappealing and often out of reach for private enterprises. It has been recognized, however, as being vital for leading to breakthroughs in a myriad of fields, including disease prevention and space exploration.
Applied research and experimental development, meanwhile, are much further along the research and development track and directly precede bringing a product to market. The nature of these types of research and development is reflected in who spends the most on each area, with businesses funding three-fourths of all research and development in the country in 2023 but the federal government funding a plurality of all basic research.
Basic research and the discoveries that come with it are still dependent on government funding, as most basic research conducted by private institutions expands upon work already done in lucrative fields like AI and defense. The fields of tomorrow, as technologies like AI once were, will only be discovered through government research grants that allow various institutions to pursue research with the hope that it will yield beneficial results, as opposed to a current need for them.
Despite these known benefits, the current administration is once again pushing for cuts to institutions like NASA and the National Institutes of Health, as well as restrictions on how research can be funded. This is not a wholly partisan issue, as a majority-Republican Congress recently approved major funding for several prominent scientific agencies while rejecting several cuts proposed by the White House. Yet, it is important to note that these actions come on the tail end of a long campaign against the sciences by leaders on the right.
In January of 2026, a Pew survey found that 90% of Democrats were at least fairly confident in scientists to act in the public interest, compared to 65% of Republicans. If science as a practice continues to be a partisan issue, it may only become easier for those on the right to use anti-science and anti-research rhetoric in future elections, especially if taxpayers believe that basic research is a waste of time or that the job could be better done by private entities.
The Future of Science and American Government
When considered in tandem, the increase in federal contractor scope and threats to federal research funding paint a bleak picture for the future of research and scientific advancement as it was envisioned during World War II almost a century ago.
If basic research is not undertaken through federal grants, there is a high likelihood it will not be undertaken at all. The next internet, GPS, semiconductor, or mRNA vaccine, among countless other technologies we use in our daily lives, may not exist without the basic, non-profitable groundwork that needs to be laid before products can be built, tested, and packaged.
Furthermore, an increase in contractors and private investments into research and development, paired with these cuts to publicly-funded research, could lead to a gated, selective research process. It is not difficult to imagine a world where, due to a lack of funds, universities — both public and private — hospitals, public labs, and other institutions dependent on federal support fail to realize basic research as we know it today. Then, private institutions will be the only places left to conduct cutting-edge research, and only in fields deemed potentially profitable. Moreover, the government will grow further reliant on those institutions, potentially handicapping its ability to defend American interests at home and abroad.
None of this has yet come to pass. Private contractors remain an invaluable part of the public-private relationship that has served this nation for two and a half centuries, and the majority of cuts to federal funding and grants have been rejected by Congress or ruled unlawful in courts. The system works, but cracks are beginning to show.
It is up to the leaders of today to decide how to engage with and regulate the new technologies of our time, chiefly AI, and decide how best to incorporate them into our system of governance. In an age of subscriptions and renewals, should the government be relying on satellites that they may pay monthly or yearly fees for and do not have direct control over? How can trust be restored in science as an endeavour when those who occupy the highest offices in the land repeatedly misrepresent and ignore evidence-based reports and research that have “stood the test of time?”
As the United States marches into its 251st year and beyond, its citizens will need to thoughtfully address these questions, and how this nation responds will dictate the future of not just scientific inquiry in the United States, but also what kind of nation we will be.
