It's weird that we don't hear more of this in the political debate. 

I guess the politicians and corporations don't want to bother us, they'll gladly tend to those decisions for us :(

I don't know how it is in the US, but in France science is pretty abandoned, and sadly above all by students.

Of course, in times of crisis, they cut first, things that don't have a direct spectacular impact on the country. Like sciences, which needs a lot of time and people to be made.

And finally none of our leaders have any scientific back ground, how are they going to understand anything of it?

Yes good point, we need to get people to look at the bigger picture, and accept that it is often a longer time frame to get results from science, but the results of scientific research are important, and can have a huge impact on all the world's citizens.

In the US, we have some organizations promoting science, trying to encourage young people to take an interest in it, especially girls, maybe we will see a growth of interest in the science fields, we can hope :)

I agree, Janill, it does seem like science is on the upswing in America as role models like Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill Gates, the Google founders, the Facebook founders, etc., are promoting science.