Oh boy... did you work at the dod?
Colorado by any chance?
It's always been bad, but the inflationary explosion in national security bureaucracy happened post 9/11 with the creation of DHS and the Iraq invasion. It expanded the diameter of the bandits that circle the DC beltway another 5-10 miles.
And no I am not calling the contractors who actually make real useful military hardware bandits. It's all the consultants and support service contractors in the DC area - who are both incapable of producing anything useful and couldn't anyway since they are in the DC metropolitan area.