Science Quote by David R. Gergen

The sting here is in the mismatch: a country flush with cash still acting like it’s broke where it counts. David R. Gergen’s question isn’t really a request for information; it’s a public shaming wrapped in polite astonishment. “In heaven’s name” signals exasperation at something that should be morally obvious, not just economically irrational. By framing it as a nation-level paradox, he makes the reader feel the absurdity as a kind of civic embarrassment.

The $1 trillion surplus is doing double duty: it’s a factual cudgel and a symbol of misplaced priorities. Gergen is pointing at a political culture that can celebrate fiscal abundance while starving the long-game investments that actually produce national strength. “Threaten” is carefully chosen, too. It implies not merely budget trimming but destabilization - the sense that research lives at the mercy of short-term maneuvering, culture-war suspicion, or the optics of “waste” politics.

The subtext is a critique of the incentives driving American governance: tax cuts and near-term wins are legible to voters; basic research is slow, technical, and easy to caricature until it’s suddenly indispensable. “Vital to its future” yanks science out of the lab and into the national story - competitiveness, security, health, and prestige. In that light, the surplus becomes an indictment: the problem isn’t capacity, it’s will.