True. But have you ever worked in government and tried to eliminate a position for which funding was available? Laying someone off from a government job when the budget has been cut is not easy, but doable. You still have a bunch of juggling to do, people bumping according to seniority, etc., but at the end of the day, you can wind up with fewer people. But try doing that when the budget hasn't been cut - it is almost impossible to do. Now if we could change the law to eliminate government unions and civil service protections, that would make a big difference. But without those changes, what you are suggesting would be tied up in the courts until long after the then-current president was out of office.
I am not opposed to the concept - I have just worked in government long enough to know that the idea of doing wholesale layoffs, absent a budget cut to justify it, is right up there with getting an amendment banning abortion passed and ratified - it may be technically possible (i.e., there is a non-zero possibility it could happen), but it is not likely barring some other major changes first.
How long has it been since there have been real conservatives in charge of these agencies? Twenty-five years, at least.
All you are telling me is that the system is impacted with mid-level bureaucrats whose paychecks are justified by the size of their budgets and staff. Yet managers are easier to fire than the unionized rank and file.
Spend the money on the contracting, validate the results independently, and... OOPS.
It's not that hard. What we need is people in charge with contacts in academia and the resource management industry who have guts and know what they are doing. That's the hard part for politicians to identify.