Yeah, it seems like government employees rarely lose their jobs. I remember a few years ago there was some discussion about treating government jobs like any job, and laying off state and county workers when their performance was lacking. This was discussed on a local radio station, and a few state employees called up hysterical, saying: "We shouldn't be treated like any other job because we go through so many hoops!" ..... as if people who go through school and work up the corporate ladder don't have to go through hoops. I suspect if we cut out every poorly performing government job a LOT of people would be out of work.
Talk about wheels within wheels. The fellow who blades the Township roads provides a usful service. He is paid with tax receipts, but he also pays out 50% in taxes, like everyone else.
Nearly every government job beyond the county level is make work.
For example, many years ago, (back when computers were so unknown that sending your resumé, printed by dot matrix on thermal paper, was enough to get you a fine job), A fellow produced a little data base that churned random numbers into a monthly report he was required to produce. It usually took 2 weeks to compile and type the report. He did it in 5 minutes, mostly printing time. No one seemed to care.
Every Judicial District in the State copied that disk, and someone SOLD copies to other states. They used it for years. The only variable the user could change was the date. The report was useless space filler to meet a make work requirement. No one cared.
Awards were granted for useing modern technology in the workplace, budgets were adjusted to include computers for everyone, and now, they are swamped with more useless reports emailed at the last minute, so they can play solitare and surf stock prices on the net, waiting for their (50% off) payday, until retirement. No one cares.
Government's only job is to insure Governmental job survival. The FBI will show an interest in terrorists when they have to submit them a report, or not get (50%) paid.
There's one problem with this, there's no profit and loss in government, therefore, there is no accurate way to measure performance. One solution is to put governmental activities out for competitive bidding.