Pause all hiring, freeze travel and other casual expenditures, relook at all major initiatives/projects/programs, etc.
Definitely something (IMHO) worth doing every 5-7 years in any environment. Can't imagine what it will uncover in government where I'm guessing it hasn't happened in much longer in most cases.
Their budgets are debated in TV. Imagine that in a big corp. it is simply false to say this organized attack on research is anything than a spasm of anti-science ideology.
There is a good reason why there isn’t much (successful) precedent around this type of thing being done before.
Achieving change against current incentives with politically mindful measures I'd say is very time consuming and slow.
In regards to your point I agree that treating public services as companies that can't be running at a loss is been demonstrated to be bad, but there is a fine line between trying to make public services profitable VS trying to make them more efficient.