To put it in perspective though, there's probably more than 570 government employees and hangers-on right there in Washington closely associated with Congress,

To put it in perspective though, there's probably more than 570 government employees and hangers-on right there in Washington closely associated with Congress, that could be more easily replaced in the future once the budget allows. Plus a number of those are bound to be doing damage to the country as a full time effort, and everyone else is worse off because of it. The advantage of reducing this type of force would be realistically orders of magnitude more beneficial than kicking out NASA people earning the same amount of pay & benefits. The budget doesn't show things like this. Not to mention the extreme cost of on-boarding NASA-level replacements in the future, or if that never occurs, the permanent loss of significant national astrophysics capability along with the immeasurable sunk cost of building the momentum they did have. The budget doesn't show things like this either. If the top financial budget people just had half the mathematical ability and insight of the average NASA worker things would be incredibly better. Right down to the maintenance workers and office cleaners, that's how bad it is. OTOH some people don't understand science and they don't want other people to do so either. And some people do understand science and they don't want other people to do so even more.