Non-defense research and development spending has become a classic case of rhetoric versus reality in Washington, D.C.

Politicians pay lip service to the importance of investments in research and development all the time. Yet when push comes to shove, they’ve largely abandoned such investments, replacing them with unsustainable entitlement programs.

Back in 1967, only 25.9 percent of the federal budget was allocated to mandatory entitlement spending programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. The budget office now estimates that 56.5 percent of the federal budget will go toward mandatory entitlement spending in 2013.

This leaves a far smaller slice of the budgetary pie for discretionary spending. Non-defense research and development spending has been reduced from 3.5 percent in 1970 to 1.6 percent of the budget today, according to Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

Getting our debt crisis in order and increasing research and development spending are not mutually exclusive goals. Research and development spending currently makes up such a small portion of the overall federal budget that cutting it as a means toward deficit reduction is misguided.

To put it simply, it’s not the reason the United States has reached $17 trillion in debt.

Cutting back on entitlements, however, is an absolutely critical measure for the United States to take to get the debt under control.

Unless fundamental changes are made, entitlement spending will continue to grow at an alarming rate in the coming years due to the rising cost of health care and the aging population. Not only is this irreversible fact problematic for debt reduction, but it’s also likely to further squeeze our research and development spending.

The United States has long maintained a status as a world leader in science and innovation. This is partly thanks to government investment, which can lead to economic growth benefitting the lives of all Americans.

To watch this role effectively diminish during our lifetimes would be yet another signal that the United States, though still a world superpower, is truly fading in terms of being a true hegemon.

Aside from information technology and robotics, the U.S. economy has been relatively less innovative since the latter half of the 20th century than it was in the first half.

Federal research and development investments in renewable energy since the oil supply crisis of the 1970s can be described as nothing more than an abject failure. Climate change is a market externality that the government needs to play an active role in fixing.

During the Nixon administration, the Cancer Act of 1971 was signed, starting the government’s war on cancer. President Richard Nixon envisioned a cure being discovered by 1974 at the latest.

To say the Nixon administrations failed in this endeavor would be unfair — we are still in search of a cure 42 years later. Yet despite increases in technology, the Obama administration has either lacked the confidence or the ambition to declare a war on any single crippling disease.

This is not President Barack Obama’s fault in particular, but it reflects the general crisis of confidence that has largely gripped American society dating back to when we first landed on the moon. Since then, there have been increasing levels of uncertainty regarding whether we still are the premier innovators of the world.

We don’t seem to set our sights as high as a result.

If nothing else, the United States must begin investing more federal dollars into green energy sources. This will help more environmentally conscience corporations reach economies of scale, and eventually compete in the free market without government subsidies.

The United States has a serious debt problem, but the entire world faces energy issues related to climate change. If we want to get serious about the debt in a moral way, entitlements – not research and development spending on green energy – need to be slashed.

Ethan Demers is a senior political science and history major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at [email protected].

Published on November 5, 2013 at 1:44 am