Overpaid Bureaucrats

While perusing Don Boudreaux's superb blog, I read a letter-to-the-editor he noticed in the Washington Post. A Virginia woman was upset about the bloated salaries of the parasites who work for the federal government. She said:

If you drive through Northern Virginia, you will find nearly entire neighborhoods of $500,000 to $900,000 homes owned by government workers or contractors. Then you can drive five streets over and find $200,000 to $400,000 homes owned by those who pay the salaries for those government employees. It's a fascinating distribution of wealth. Most government employees and contractors could not earn more than $60,000 on the free market. Their only chance to make that kind of money comes from having an employer that not only never has to make a profit but can forcibly take money through taxation.

Just in case you think this woman doesn't know what she's talking about, here is an increasingly famous chart put together by my Cato colleague, Chris Edwards: