The average government employee is beyond useless, and sadly the few who are good get a bad reputation and also a huge workload dumped on them by the majority.

One of the engagements I get called to once a week involves dealing with some gov employees. It had the odd property of continuing when the shutdown hit, so its the contractors and no gov people. Productivity on the project is completely unaffected. Half of the workforce gone, no change in productivity. There are certainly less meetings, so that's nice.