plan to make sure our communities are indeed safe. he has taken action the last two years and will continue to do that. i will leave it there for now. >> coming up shortly this friday afternoon, canadian prime minister justin trudeau holds a news conference responding to his report on his decision to use emergency power to end a february 22 protest against covid vaccine mandates. his remarks are set for 3:00 p.m. eastern today, a couple minutes from now and we will have live coverage on c-span when it gets underway. until then, a portion of our washington journal program. >> washington journal continues. >> next with us is the president

and ceo of research america. we are going to talk in the segment about government funding for medical and technological research. mary, good morning and welcome to washington journal. >> good morning. thank you. for the opportunity to talk about a topic close to my heart. >> science and technology, every chance to deliver as promised. >> tell us about the organization. what is your mission? >> research america is an alliance and a nonprofit alliance. it is an industry with academia and independent research. a scientific society and philanthropy. it all determines to make research and health in particular a much higher priority. we stand firmly for science and

technology so we can make sure that science and technology, medical research deliver on the promise. better help, stronger nation, more prosperous and should appear. >> one of the reasons we have you on is the president has said in his state of the union, calling on more federal funding or areas of research and science and technology. tell us broadly about what you heard from the president that peter interests of the speech. >> president biden has been a champion of medical and health research, and cancer research in particular which he often refers to. but also, i champion of science, and it is a privilege to be at a bipartisan affair for the chips and science act. ships and science is about

catching up. i want to refer to the diagram. a chart about china. united states is in a position of catching up to china's investment in research and development. china took a page from the playbook several decades ago in ramping up our research and development capacity in order to assure a more prosperous and secure nation. the president of china is quoted on this from science and technology. that helped us we founded it, and we continue to help lita. he says, we must regard science and technology as our primary productive force.

>> can i ask? with china, it is pretty dramatic when you look at the line of the u.s.. the percentage of global spending, research and development, background 2000, it is 40% of the level of spending on research and development. it is from the united states. what has caused the slide in research and development dollars? >> i think it has taken progress for granted. the effect is that as we go about our daily lives, we don't think about science and technology very much. it is important to our taxpayer dollars actually percentagewise. with our taxpayer dollars, we support science and technology, but it is a case of the future. the rest of the world has been catching up to the united states. not just china, but also taiwan,

korea. japan. israel. many countries have made a commitment of the national priority to assure that they are benefiting from the promise of federal investment, which is often at the most risky level. then, the creation of public and private partnerships and so important to advancing innovation and delivering on the solution that we all aim for. energy solutions, agriculture solutions, security solutions. >> we welcome your phone calls. the numbers are on your screen. for independents, the number is on your screen. mary, give us a couple examples

of how, historically, research has benefited. the american public. it is been widely quoted that 50% of our economy is driven by technology. in our recent survey, which you can see, research america.org on her website, this is from january. 75% of the american public said that investments in science and tech knowledge e creates job opportunities. it always has. that is a huge statement about the value of federal investment in science and technology. the american public one set to continue. you can see that in the slides we have showing that six in 10 americans say that more taxpayer

dollars should be invested. it is pretty important. we talk about cutting the federal budget while it is rampant. this is a call you don't want to make it it is a cut that would put on hold entrepreneurial interests, driving investment in businesses. it may go elsewhere to other nations at work, but it sends a message that you'll have to wait. parents are desperate for a cure. for their child's rare disease. they are worried about their own parents and their struggles. we shouldn't be waiting to find this. we have to move forward. >> your survey says six in 10 americans, 73% of democrats were surveyed to say that more taxpayer dollars should be

invested. 54% of republicans. the fact is the number continues to slide. how do you make an argument admits the calls for federal budget and in particular. >> i don't think those numbers are reliable. we've seen over three decades of public opinion surveys, and we've commissioned those surveys and conducted them ourselves. >> i mean the actual spending of the u.s. as a percentage of global development. >> that is true. it is a striking problem that bipartisan support is there, and yet, we are spying. sometimes, it is stable and sometimes it isn't. i think it is because we do take progress for granted. sometimes, bipartisan topics get taken for granted. we can't afford to have the gas

drive the economy and assure prosperity. >> you mentioned the types of research, and you said some of the work of the federal government is often at its most risky level. explain that. >> there is another slide showing strong bipartisan support. that is the foundational research. it is probably the highest risk. it is the kind of research where we don't know where it's going to be. in some places, it turns out to be important. years of investment in the work that led to the mrna vaccine that has saved as many as 3 million lives. many lives have been lost. every loss of life is a tragedy. we need to do better.

we need to support the foundational research. that will prevent the next pandemic. in this light, you have an opportunity to take that. it is not only bipartisan, strongly bipartisan, but it also contains some disturbing news. we always find in the surveys that we commissioned that there is concerning news on business. but the concerning news here as we've seen for the last couple of years is that younger respondents are less likely to be supportive of basic research. we had prophecies about -- hypotheses about that, we don't have answers. one question is that young people have become disillusioned with the institution, generally, and the government being included.

another hypothesis is the k-12 science is acacian is failing us and this nation. we have another slide that shows strong bipartisan support for improving this education, and for the federal government, interestingly, we have a role. we think about education as a local or state. it pretty much is. but there is a role in federal government. incentives and otherwise strengthening the science and technology, engineering, and edison pipeline. we need that pipeline to meet the jobs requirement of science and technology and to drive our future. >> the phone lines for comments and questions. for republicans, it is on the screen.

on twitter, or at c-span, a question for you from lauren. what good is r&d if production is set overseas, leaving us at the mercy of china. we don't see the best interest at heart. >> thank you for that question. that is exactly the point of making progress. some years ago, the united states lost its lead in consumer electronics. we weren't paying attention to what we thought was our prominence in consumer electronics. we lost the edge yesterday. even further back. a center of the world. we lost the edge. it's ok. for the rest of the world, let's be clear about that. we can all work together, but we

want to work together on a level and fair playing field. that is where we get into problems with fairness as much a prominent commitment as we do. one of our underlying principles , fair enough. we are working towards that. many people are working, but they can't do it but they can't do it without a friend. >> we will hear from carl in york. democrat. go ahead. >> good morning. i'm a big proponent of science, research, development. i believe scientists when they come on tv and they tell me stuff. my question to you is how am i to devote more resources to research and development, when i

hear big pharma saying drug prices are so exorbitantly high because a lot of it goes to research and development. for some reason, i don't put a lot of stock in that. can you help me out with that? thank you. >> you are not alone. you are concerned about the cost of health care, broadly speaking, including medications that many of us depend on for our quality of life and well-being. we know from our survey, again, that when we asked people to name the number one most important health related issue that faces the nation, today, health care's number one. followed by covid which used to be number one. after that, mental health, the

opioid crisis, and other things we are all too familiar with. to get back to that complicated question, there are many moving parts. many moving parts. there are actually research behind understanding the most effective way to deliver health care in all respects. based on evidence, rather than happenstance. or status quo thinking. research helps with that. we strongly support that, and it is underfunded. we need more of it so we can get that out of delivery. research is still -- essential, but if you can't of orit, it is not helping. we want to help. >> we are going to tick -- break away to take you to a news co