US research funding is not what you want to cut though. It is among the most productive funding possible and there is evidence aplenty that it pays for itself many times over.
University bureaucracy is by and large fairly small for research. When you get into undergraduate education I will agree the administration has been bloated by the current system. But research has been surprisingly lean in my experience.
Echoing this as well - administration for research is fairly thin in every institution I've worked at.
In my career, there's only one position I can definitely point to as "That shouldn't exist" - ironically, it's both one that played well with "The university should be more like a business" and was also, in effect, a retention move for their massively productive spouse.
I hear this about everything. “Don’t cut this thing because it’s the most efficient and productive thing ever!” Food stamps, homeless funding, public transport, public schools. Supposedly every single thing is the most efficient thing ever and we can’t possibly cut a dollar
All of your examples put together would be a rounding error in the US Military budget
Exactly, if their goal was to actually look for fraud and waste, why are they starting with such small potatoes like science funding? You'd think they'd focus on areas that are spending many more zeros, where they could have much more impact...
It's like me saying I'm going to cut down my spending, and instead of moving houses to reduce my rent by $1000, I instead focus right away on cutting out my $5/mo VPS hosting service.
In everything, there is some low-hanging fruit that yields an impactful outcome for minimal spending.