…and by better folks than I–and said better, to boot–but it bears repeating: Governments exist to pay* government employees**. Period. All the rest is just fiddly bits.
*The “pay” for some is primarily in an ability to exercise illegitimate power over the lives of citizens, hence millionaires running for Congress. Their congressional pay and benefits may be minuscule compared with their already existent wealth; it’s the perquisites, honorifics and exercise of personal power that appeals to all too many of these scum.
**Note that I did NOT say “government workers” as such a class is relatively small in any government. In our fedgov, for example, line troops and much of the support staff in the military are workers. Staff pukes are quite often a drain on whatever military mission exists. Congresscritters and their staffs are fegov employees, all, and almost all of them are worthless as workers whose efforts actually benefit the country as a whole. Indeed, were they to continue to be paid with the requirement that they do absolutely NOTHING, the benefit to society would be immense.
