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The numbers don't appear to support that. Federal government employees haven't fluctuated very much over the past 40 years.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/204535/number-of-governm...

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Given that productivity has risen 10x isn't having the same number of people as 1980 already a sign of big bloat (or increased busy-work)?

Plus, how much of stuff it used to do internally 40 years ago are now done through subcontractors and delegated to private companies? Meaning even that number is now doing less than 1980?

Have you considered that the US population has grown from 220m to 330m? Meaning proportionally, the government uses fewer resources to cover a larger amount of people?

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