Research money is distributed by federal agencies like the NIH though, not congress directly. I can only imagine the horror if Congress would influence this - no more funding for anything related to evolution
Spending on Defense might be too high, but you know there's no sane politician who would vote to reduce it. He'd be branded weak and unwilling to defend the country... and if some incident happened, that party would be toast. Even if money for airport security were cut and the incident happened at a port, it wouldn't make a difference.