Totally incorrect. The most cursory research (e.g. a Google for “US government”, a search on the nytimes, lookup in the AP style guide) will refute this.

Anyway, regardless of your personal definition of the term, the intent of communication of the person you are replying to is crystal clear and in obvious contradiction to your analysis. (That person expressly uses the word “federal.”)

My initial reaction is to disagree with this statement and to point out that I think the parent comment is sorting the issue well.

As I think about more though, I must wonder if this could be a regional thing and varies.. and or if that is relevant to the specifics in this thread.

The more I think about it, I wonder if places like Cali and NY would think of things in that manner.. with places like Texas and TN thinking very differently.

It's an interesting thought, and wonder if there is data / polls out there for something seemingly basic like this.