Is anyone else still working for state government? I suppose all the smart people have left and the others have been laid off by now. I personally work in higher education and I'm getting sick and tired of never getting a raise, worrying about being laid off and seeing all the best programs people have worked on for years getting cut back to nothing. Also tired of stupid Republicans who would rather cut back education than raise taxes on casinos and close tax loopholes. What a joke. How can any state come out of a recession by cutting education? Anyways had to vent hoping to hear from some other annoyed state government workers..

Nope, no one is working for state government. There's a big help wanted sign hanging on every state capitol and no one there to do the hiring.

A close friend of mine works for the Pennsylvania Healthcare Cost Containment Council in Harrisburg, PA. She is, of course, hearing many rumblings from the big wigs at the Capitol that funding is in danger, and the agency itself is on a short list of state programs being "evaluated." So to answer your question, yes, people still do work for state governments, but I can't say that it's as safe of a place to work as it used to be.

I work for the NC Department of Transportation.

I've got no comment on the rest of your post, though, as I just do my job and keep out of worrying about why. I stress out enough as it is.

OTOH, I'm a contractor working for the federal government and in our office are two government employees who are here to "help" us. By "help" I mean they draw 80K a year to insert themselves into the development lifecycle under the guise of helping our product stay "certified" and then refuse to do any work toward meeting that goal. Recent conversation:

Me: “I have a new product I need to get certified ASAP”
Mordoc: Looking up from solitaire game. “You need to have certification before developing a new product”
Me: “The client wanted to see a working copy before giving us the go-ahead, so we went ahead and developed a prototype.”
Mordoc: “You should have laid out your product specifications before doing any development work.”
Me: “But the user wasn’t sure what they wanted until they saw an example. I didn’t have any product specifications.”
Mordoc: “The regulations state you need to have product specifications before doing any development work.”
Me: Gives Mordoc a blank stare. Then finally: “ummm. Ok, here are my specifications for a product I need to develop.”
Mordoc: Shifts uncomfortably. “I’m not sure what I can do about it now, I’ll get back with you.” Returns to all important solitaire game.

My resolution? I went above his head to another person who was able to get the program certified, no questions asked. “Mordoc” was effectively cut out of the loop, which suited him just fine. All-in-all, I'd say the whole system is messed up pretty bad if these guys can sit around and play solitaire all day while our educators are getting paid a fraction of what they’re worth to society.

Dang Modoc needs to request a new system to play some BF1942 instead... Those conditions are horrid!!!

Nope, no one is working for state government. There's a big help wanted sign hanging on every state capitol and no one there to do the hiring.

Sure explains a lot.

Look how bad things are here in Massachusetts.
This is our State House!!

Well, our old state house.
It has a subway in it...

By ``State House'', do you mean the home of the state legislature? Regardless, I like the building; it's pretty cool. The North Carolina Legislative Building is annoyingly ``modern''. The NC Governor's Mansion, on the other hand, is one of the coolest buildings I've ever seen.

I was referring to the state capitol building in the city of Boston specifically. Home of the state government, the governors (Mitt Romney, Mr.Olympics-fix-it himself) office and the Red Sox (not really). We call it the state house. The one in the above picture is the old state house it was originally built in 1657, but took its last and current form in 1713. It has an incredible amount of history, and has a subway station in the basement.

This is the new state house. It was completed in 1798.
In Boston terms 1798 is "new".
No subway station, but it does have a copper and 23K gold dome.