Could you help clarify something for me? When I looked into the federal workforce, just looking at raw numbers without much insight about the "inside", it doesn't seem particularly bloated or wasteful to me: it runs at ~5% of the federal budget and at 2mil people it is about 0.5% of the population.

It looks like you and some other commenters, however, are discussing government contracts, which are projects and programs paid for the government but implemented by third-party contractors. Is that correct?