Right, but that's still not very competitive. A senior engineer at the high paying places can be making 300k+. And those places usually have good benefits, too.

Granted, that's usually in expensive metros, but it's not like DC is cheap either.

Realistically, a lot of people on the left do not like "techies" and feel that devs at Google, FB, et al are horrendously overpaid relative to their contributions to society. So while the Democrats may be okay with the general principle of, "the government should be able to pay more to get the people they need", I think they'd balk at actually paying FAANG-level prices for engineers. Almost 200k for a new grad CS major? That's a hard sell to a party that focuses more -- or at least advertises itself more -- on the poor and working class.