Why lay off marketing/research?

So why is it whenever a group feels the economic pinch the first to go is the marketing or Research group? Akin to blinding yourself and for good measure drinking Draino to kill the vocal cords.
The other approach is to turn these functions to an outside company. WRONG! Outside companies have no idea about your culture, no stake in doing their very best, and those left managing the company have no clue if the feed-back is even close to correct. All control is lost with and outside contractor, worse yet if no one is hired.
Research is cut when times get tough, how on earth do you find out what people are really thinking, what the trends actually are? Heaven forbid if if you are an association and your members depend on that research. Why not just shoot yourself now and avoid a long slow decent into irrelevance.
Can you imagine, when a company gets a call by a research firm claiming to represent your association and they want to know about how you are doing? Yah, right, sure they are going to give up information, more likely to hang up or worse, thinking to protect their company give up misleading information.
The company has no stake in retrieving accurate information beyond their contract pay, the company contracting has no idea if the information is accurate.
Soon an association who receives bad information, or inaccurate information starts to loose members to other associations. Good by old established group, hello numerous new groups, and everyone looses until they all get back together.
Nothing good can come of these moves, marketing and research are the most important part of any company/association. A cost center, well yah, but the eyes and voice, I sure hope you can trust your hired eyes and voice.