Comment 10 by Ornicar :

Sorry Mr. Krauss but who cares ? Research is important. Physics, darn important. But would next discoveries be made in Brasil, India or Angola doesn't matter for science.

You know, it's a tiny ball of rock in the middle of a huge, cold, hostile and expending universe. South Dakota or Vladivostok is all the same from a Big Bang point of view.

I agree that from the standpoint of science it doesn't matter where new results come from. But research funding isn't a zero some game. If the US stops a serious commitment to basic research there is no guarantee that someone else will pick up the slack. And while it doesn't matter to science or to the world as a whole it should matter to any US citizen who loves their country and wants to see it prosper in the future. In the past science and new technology were always one of the main drivers of the US economy. For selfish reasons its ridiculous for the US to abandon that now.