The standard definition of GDP is a crappy one
Government produces nothing. It merely re-allocates consumption or investment that would have been done elsewhere.
OR in the case of our present situation, it merely “prints money” in the form of monetized debt, to steal others resources through debasement.
In theory, government provides (”produces”) services which are needed by at least some segment of the population. That’s why they are allowed to be part of the equation. Now I’ll admit that government services are not constrained by the same efficiency pressures that goods and services produced in the free market are. Goverment gets to take what it wants through taxation (and in the Federal Government’s case, printing and borrowing money) in order to remain solvent. Market institutions have no such luxury and that’s why they are forced to operate by profit motive. Oddly enough the problem can be democracy. Once a large group of people’s incomes and benefits are tied to government, market forces get replaced by political forces...we can see the effects of that on our own economoy now....to the negative.