I have family and friends that work for state government. Not the federal government, but still a branch on the same topic tree.
They, like you, are good people. They also, unlike me, enjoy benefits (days off for holidays, sick days, stubbed toe days, obscure holiday holidays, yadda yadda), paid-for health-care and the promise of a decent pension that I can but dream about.
I’ve been told I “should go work for the state”, but I try (and often fail) to explain that I, the self-employed guy, should be able to make it on my own and not have the taxpayers (me again) funding a plush lifestyle and retirement. State and federal workers, while necessary in many cases, are an expense. I, the self-employed guy, produce the income and they are a draw on that income.
I don’t hate them and I don’t hate you. I hate a government that has created a class of elites that enjoy privileges and security that the private sector, the folks who are the backbone of the economy, will never see. We need government, but a government that is limited to necessaries, not a congressman’s dopey cousin who needs a job and gets a make-work position in some cavernous federal bureaucracy.
It has just gotten out of hand. That abomination of a budget is the latest example. We cannot pay for all of this. Don’t even get me started on social unsecurity. I am forced to pay nicely into that fund and likely will never see a penny back, and that really pisses me off. I could do better with that money on my own.
I did not “work for” the state but I was a rented “piece of equipment”. Even most of the “hard working” ones only did about an hour of justifiable work so most of those working for the state were parasites also.