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