I think it's interesting to summarize this thread as: - Government can't offer competitive pay due to politics. - Government contracts big projects to 3rd par

I think it's interesting to summarize this thread as: - Government can't offer competitive pay due to politics. - Government contracts big projects to 3rd parties who pay competitively, but lack the transparency that government is required to have. In a way it would seem to be that government contractor organizations are acting as an abstraction, and are in essence a way of government allocating funds without needing to provide the transparency and accountability of doing things in house. In essence, if you follow this line --> contractors are basically government. (i.e. Working for SpaceX is basically working for government without the page/scale political challenges of getting stuff done, SpaceX is more or less funded by Gov) Perhaps things are working how they should.