Ren, every corp out there cuts maintenance expenses and people expenses to meet their budgets, now why would anyone expect the gov to be any different. Salaries are every company's biggest expense.
Oil company pipelines reduce maint expenses/people expenses and the pipeline cracks/spills out precious/expensive oil on the ground but HEY, they saved on expenses to make a bigger profit.
Car manufacturers cut maint and people expenses and buy inferior parts and kill people who buy their products but they still show a bigger profit because they reduced expenses from the previous yr.
There are others but I think you get my point.
Our country has been in a big expense cutting mode for the last 5 years, except for the gov, but look how many companies continue at the top to make bigger profits that beat those pesky analysts estimates almost each and every quarter, so these high paid executives get their big fat cash bonuses and high salaries.
Estimated 24M US people out of work and living on gov assistance or whatever is left of their savings, if they had any to begin with and some do, some don't.
As long as we continue to be a low-cost provider of ISR from any level in the sky, I think we can continue to rise to the occasion, so to speak?
I could give you stats/links, but don't feel like digging them out at the moment, Bureau of Labor statistics, weekly jobs added, unemployment rolls, monthly consumer debt, the list goes on.
Our mgmt appears to be on the right track, at the right time and in the right place, I'm not sure we could ask for anything more. Profits will come but it will take time. Big markets are all over-bought and will correct in time, how much time, who knows. We all agree, we are over-sold and will correct in time!
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