| Saying you don't know what you're talking about is not a personal attack when you seem to be going out of your way to prove me right. "The government" is not a gigantic neolithic behemoth doing whatever it wants whenever it wants. You might be surprised to learn that there are in fact three branches of government in the United States. Congress has passed more than one law detailing the manner in which federal employees can be paid, and limiting how much each given position may be paid.[0] Similarly, Congress sets the budget for the Executive agencies. Because the Pentagon get billions of dollars does not mean that it's trivial to raise the salary of everyone at the Food & Drug Administration. USG employees make significantly less than their private sector counterparts (usually) because they get quite a few benefits unavailable to the private sector: * Generous paid leave in the form of sick time, vacation time, comp time, and scheduled holidays * Accrued paid leave is paid out when you leave government employment * Government pension
Ignoring the completely nonsensical "rent-seeking gatekeepers" comment, Lockheed and BAH receive government contracts through open bid procurement processes. You'll get no argument from me that often times these bids are written so only 1-3 firms in the world even qualify, but that's sort of the nature of the beast when the bid is to develop a new missile or something. [0] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... |
It's attacking the person, not the central point. Thus making it ad-hominem.
> You might be surprised to learn that there are in fact three branches of government in the United States
See above comment.