A lot of American military is built along Cold War grounds. The nuclear defense policy is hilariously outdated, for a world where the major issue was trying to swagger over the USSR. I've never heard a decent argument that the whole triad couldn't just be replaced by a few defensive nuclear subs.
The defense of the high military spending is officially that being a hegemon inspires stability. Whether that has happened (or even if "stability" is the most important goal around) is another matter...
I wouldn't want our entire defense for this to be reduced to a few subs. That's far easier to defeat and more prone to issues. If one sub breaks down or has other issues, a large chunk of your defense is offline.
If we're talking about costs, reducing the number of ICBMs might be a good start. Replace with smaller, more mobile hypersonic missiles with a very large amount of MIRVs per missile
(on that note, I find the self-imposed MIRV limitations counterproductive because it's just offset by an increased number of missiles). In fact, reducing just about every part of the triad, if not eliminating specialized bombers entirely, wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea. We have a system built for a different time.
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