For military families facing benefit reductions, Marines scrambling for adequate training and equipment and school children greeted with “Closed for Business” signs on the White House tour door, the sequester cuts are a very real thing. Not so for those engaged in the business of government. For them, life has never been better.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in April that the unemployment rate for government workers was a healthy 3.6 percent, while the rate overall was almost twice that, at 7.1 percent.

Moreover, those same government employees, once hired, are almost impossible to get rid of. When Lois Lerner worked at the Federal Elections Commission she adversely targeted conservative organizations and even religious groups.

Instead of letting her go, she was moved over to the Internal Revenue Service where she performed the same stunt, lied about it to Congress and then refused to take any questions. She’s not on administrative leave for her wrongdoing — with her full six-figure salary and benefits intact. Not a bad gig if you can get it.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday:

In the months since the automatic federal spending cuts known as the sequester took effect, the Washington area has added 40,000 jobs. Income-tax receipts have surged in Virginia, beating expectations. Few government contractors have laid off workers.

Whatever happened to that principle adopted in our Constitution in 1789 in which the people were the masters and the machinery of government the servant? Commenting in The Weekly Standard on this very issue, Geoffrey Norman observed that that’s the way things work “when you write the rules.”

All-in-all, I think Mel Brooks said it best: “It’s good to be king.”

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