About 9 out of 10 people are not very good at their job: just passable.
But being truly incompetent? Not too sure about that.
But government employees? I just so happen to have tens of thousands of people to choose from that I got to work with over about a decade.
From my experience, about 1/10 to 1/20 of government employees are truly incompetent.
Here's where it gets weird. If look at, say, Air Traffic Controllers, almost none of the are incompetent and for a good reason: they get the shit tested out of them and they have to continue to pass tests their entire career. And there are many checks and balances to ensure they continue to do their job and do it very well. Perhaps only 1 out of 10,000 ATCs are truly incompetent because the bad ones are weeded out in ATC school.
I used to have this book about government incompetence. But it was meant to be funny. I forget the specifics, but there was at least one occasion where the government purchased land it had forgotten it already owned lol.
I can't find it when I search for it though, all I get is a bunch of articles about the government stealing land.
Don't know what category these would fall under, but keep in mind the government okayed these studies lol:
https://www.dailysignal.com/2014/10/22/top-6-examples-wasteful-government-spending-wastebook-2014/
1. The National Institute of Health’s Center for Alternative and Complimentary Medicine spent $387,000 to study the effects of Swedish massages on rabbits.
2. The Department of Interior spent $10,000 to monitor the growth rate of saltmarsh grass. In other words, the government is paying people to watch grass grow. On the bright side, they have not started paying people to watch paint dry.
3. The National Science Foundation has granted more than $200,000 to a research project that is trying to determine how and why Wikipedia is sexist. Wikipedia’s War on Woman?
4. The National Institute of Health funded a study to see if mothers love dogs as much as they love kids. Regardless of the results, this experiment cost taxpayers $371,026.
5. The federal government has granted $804,254 for the development of a smartphone game called “Kiddio: Food Fight.” The game is intended to teach parents how to convince their children to try and eat new healthier food choices.
6. The National Endowment for the Humanities has provided $47,000 for undergraduate classes that teach students about laughing and humor.
7. The National Science Foundation spent $856,000 to teach mountain lions how to walk on treadmills as part of a research project whose aim was to better understand mountain lions’ instincts.
It's less about the amount of money spent..more about that they thought it was a good idea to spend it on these things. Just imagine someone creepily massaging a rabbit while some scientist looks on and takes notes lol.
They will study lions on treadmills, but I don't see a damn thing about a bear cyborg program.