Yes. Most of the jobs the government does are necessary jobs that don't have an immediate profitable outcome.
Collecting taxes, doing a vast amount of research into many things, ranging from medicine to natural resources, etc. ALL of this, everything collected by the government is available for free. In the case of he NIH, they are required, by law to give the medical advances to private companies who then are able to patent it and make a profit.
When these activities have been turned over to private industry, they do not, in fact save us money. From Blackwater to the Big Dig to IRS collection, etc, mandates to accomplish things combined with a motive for profit leave us paying far, far more than we would to have government employees do the same jobs.
So, are all the jobs necessary? I realize many of you wish to say "no". But that is extremely short-sited and largely due to complete ignorance over the many things the government actually does.
Natural parks are not simply for enjoyment. They protect our natural heritage, but in a way becoming more and more important are acting as storehouses for the genetic diversity that used to cover our country. Many other things, from the arts to athropology, etc don't have immediate and direct commercial benefits, but have long-lasting priceless benefits to our society. Just think of the library of Congress, for example, where a copy of virtually every book ever written in the US is stored. Granted, many of them are garbage. However, many are not. Further, much of the absolutely not garbage appeared to have little value initially.
Then move on to things like soil studies, and you have research that has literally kept us from another dust bowl, helped prevent depression after depression. Yes, we are in trouble right now.. but it is not due to failures of government biologic research. It is due to LACK of control over the banking industry because too many people decided that those regulations were "impeding business".
Now, as for pay rates... My former bosses EACH has PhDs EACH were published many times in their fields, cited as experts for internationally recognized research. Not. perhaps nobel prize research (though in one case.. it came close). NONE of them made more than $50,000 in the same exact year that a student graduating with a BS in computer technology related fields could expect a STARTING wage of $40,000.
Yes, there are absolutely high-paid government employees. The heads of agencis, the TOP people may make $100,000 plus. However, compare that to what your average CEO makes. Yet, the education and responsibility, the impact to our nation, yes, the
benefits provided... be it in increasing trade, discovering new things or, yes, regulating things so the profiteers don't get too out of hand... they far outweigh the benefits provided by most CEOs. In fact, if you are talking about companies like Walmart, even GM, then I would strongly argue that those wages, those CEOs are doing, have done far more to HARM our country and at a far greater cost than any government employee.
So, yes, when you look at reality and not just the right-wing hype, goverment employees are a VERY good bargain for this country.
