That does sound close but Proxmire doesn't seem like a populist politician, the Golden Fleece dates from the 1980s, and it wasn't specific to academia. A lot of the research was funded by other parts of the civil service than the NSF, like:

The Federal Aviation Administration was named for spending $57,800 on a study of the physical measurements of 432 airline stewardesses, including "distance from knee to knee while sitting", and "the politeal [sic] length of the buttocks."[19]

Office of Education for spending $219,592 in a "curriculum package" to teach college students how to watch television.

Amusingly it does seem to have hit the mark. A former NSF director even lied about the awards to try and discredit it!

Too bad this is all so long ago. I was asking more about the present day, as it seems like that was the implication of the comment being replied to. Where are all these populists with their modern version of the Golden Fleece awards?