re: Military Brass gives report. 74% are not combat ready

R&D is not a linear activity. It takes investment and effort and a lot of projects fail even in a perfect world. Reducing our ability to conduct sound military-centric R&D is going to cost us dearly in terms of breakthroughs. Not to mention the degrading readiness.
If you want to tackle the DoD budget then look to military compensation reform and how many active duty folks are performing work that civilians or contractors could do. The lifetime cost of a U.S armed services individual is astronomical.