Bad guys? What a myopic view of the world. Having seen first hand both industry and government IT, both worlds have their faults.

I'm not going to get sucked into a debate about which is worse, but I'll give you my perspective on working with federal gov't IT. Yes, policy sucks, thats not going to change any time soon but it is moving towards something halfway decent. There are plenty of skilled, intelligent and motivated IT professionals who you would actually be working for. You don't do the bidding of every politician out there, but you do follow directives from offices higher up such as the white house. Btw, the respect these people proffer to devs is immense because they know you could have worked anywhere else and make more money but you decided to work for a cause they believe in as well.

So please be considerate when you make these sweeping assumptions about the govt.