This is a general problem for all (western) governments everywhere, not just the US or the US military. The thing about contractors is that paying $ x million

This is a general problem for all (western) governments everywhere, not just the US or the US military. The thing about contractors is that paying $ x million for a project is "normal", but paying a entry-level software dev twice the salary of e.g. the national police's commander in chief is completely unacceptable. If you do that, people in other branches of government will most definitely strike, and doing it will involve incredible amounts of feather ruffling. It's probably one of the hardest things for a government to do, and it stands against everything governments traditionally stand for. I don't think democratically-elected governments have a good way out of this problem. Propaganda about "protecting the nation" probably helps somewhat with convincing people to just stomach the lower pay, but that's far from enough.