Boohoo! Across the board, the nation’s 2.3 million federal employees rake in more money and benefits than their counterparts in the private sector. In many instances the jobs are cushy and wrongdoing is seldom punished or handled with a mere slap on the wrist. It’s like a professor becoming untouchable after getting tenure at a public university.

In a nutshell, it’s great work if you can get it. Employees are spread out among more than 100 agencies in jobs that represent more than 700 occupations. Overall, the government pays 16% more than private employers, according to figures released this year by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the nonpartisan agency that provides Congress with crucial economic data on pending legislation.

In some areas federal employees make more than one-third more than their private sector counterparts, CBO figures reveal. For instance, federal civilian employees with no more than a high school education averaged 36% higher total compensation than similar private-sector employees. Federal workers whose education culminated in a bachelor’s degree averaged 15 percent higher total compensation than their private-sector counterparts.

A few years ago a mainstream newspaper analysis of federal data found that government employees earn higher average salaries than private-sector workers in more than eight out of 10 occupations. These include a broad range of professional and blue-collar jobs like accountants, nurses, chemists, cooks, clerks and janitors. The newspaper used Bureau of Labor Statistics data to compare salaries in every federal job that had a private-sector equivalent.

This isn’t enough for federal workers, however. They complain about low morale and a big drop in satisfaction with pay, according to an annual survey conducted by a nonpartisan organization that works to revitalize the federal government. “The 2012 results tell a troubling story about a workforce whose satisfaction and commitment levels have dropped to the lowest point since 2003,” the report says.

The biggest beef is with a 2 ½-year pay freeze as the nation suffers through a never-ending financial crisis and a whopping $16 trillion deficit. Federal workers are also quite unhappy with their rewards and advancement, according to the survey which includes about 2 million on Uncle Sam’s payroll. The major agency with the largest number of disgruntled workers is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the 240,000-employee monster created after the 2001 terrorist attacks to protect the nation.

Employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs expressed the biggest decrease in satisfaction, with a drop of 7.1 points, from 63.8 in 2011 to 56.7 this year. It was followed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) with a 4.5-point decline. The biggest drop for a mid-sized agency was the National Labor Relations Board, whose score fell 7.5 points. The Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) had the largest declines among small agencies last year and again in 2012. FMC dropped by 21.9 points and USTR dropped by 15 points.

Even for Washington this is a bit much. Democrats have chosen a scandal-plagued college, veteran Congresswoman Maxine Waters, to be the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee despite her many transgressions over the years. The influential congresswoman has helped family members make more than $1 million through business ventures with companies and causes that she has helped, according to her hometown newspaper.

A few years ago Waters was investigated by the House Ethics Committee for steering $12 million in federal bailout funds to a failing Massachusetts bank (that subsequently got shut down by the government) in which she and her board member husband held shares. Read all about it in Waters’ profile on Judicial Watch’s 2011 “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” list.

Waters has also come under fire for skirting federal elections rules with a shady fundraising gimmick that allows her to receive unlimited amounts of donations from certain contributors. For years the veteran Los Angeles lawmaker has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in short periods of time by selling her endorsement to other politicians and political causes for as much as $45,000 a pop instead of raising most of her campaign funds from individuals and political action committees.

Never the less, Waters has been chosen by her party leaders to be their top representative on the Financial Services Committee which has jurisdiction over all issues pertaining to the economy, the banking system, monetary policy and international finance. The announcement was made last week by the House Democratic Caucus steering and policy committee, which is controlled by none other than Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker who used the U.S. Air Force as her personal airline.

The steering committee assigns fellow party members to House committees and advises party leaders on policy. In a statement announcing the steering committee’s new members a few days ago, Pelosi bragged that they “reflect the diversity, energy, bold ideas, and creative thinking of all House Democrats , and embody our Democratic commitment to create jobs, strengthen the middle class, and grow the economy.”

It wouldn’t be right to part without also noting some of Maxine Waters’ international accolades. She has made worldwide headlines for her frequent trips to communist Cuba to visit her convicted cop-assassin friend, Joanne Chesimard, who is also known by her Black Panther name of Assata Shakur. Chesimard was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted by a jury of the 1979 murder of a New Jersey State Trooper. With the help of fellow cult members, she escaped from jail and fled to Cuba.

Outraged U.S. lawmakers insisted she be extradited but Waters always stood by her side, likening the cop-assassin to civil rights leader Martin Luther King. In fact, she wrote Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro a letter to assure him that she was not part of the group of U.S. legislators who voted for a resolution to extradite the cop murderer. Waters told Castro that she opposed extradition because Chesimard was “politically persecuted” in the U.S. and simply seeking political asylum in Havana, where she still lives.

It would almost seem inconceivable—even for today’s bloated government—if it wasn’t laid out in a report issued this week by the offending agency’s inspector general. It involves personal care services provided by the federal/state-funded health insurance for the poor known as Medicaid. In the late 90s the Supreme Court ruled that unjustified segregation of the disabled is a civil rights violation so Medicaid allocated a chunk of change for home health services.

The idea is to allow the sick, disabled and those with chronic or temporary conditions stay home and, in turn, avoid sticking Uncle Sam with a hefty hospitalization bill. Instead, Medicaid’s personal care services program is rife with corruption that was first exposed more than five years ago and continues to be documented annually by the agency’s watchdog. The budget has ballooned to more than $12 billion a year, just to send what amounts to a nanny to provide supportive “nonmedical services” like meal preparation, housework, help with bathing and getting dressed, transportation and even money management.  

The tab for home care has increased by 35% since 2005 and fraud is on the rise, according to the audit. In 2010 state Medicaid fraud units investigated more than 1,000 cases related to home services. Medicaid recipients can hire practically anyone to help them and collect the money and providers undergo virtually no scrutiny. In fact, auditors list examples of Medicaid recipients hiring juveniles, relatives and girlfriends to provide services. One man was in jail while his girlfriend collected money from the government to supposedly provide him with home care.

None of this is new, in fact the report includes six previous inspector general recommendations to combat the fraud yet none have been implemented. In 2008, for instance, the inspector general issued a report finding that five states paid around $11 million in fraudulent personal care services during one quarter alone. The illegal schemes are only getting worst yet the feds have done little to stop the madness.

Auditors stress the importance of cracking down on the costly fraud, writing that “as more and more State Medicaid programs explore home care options” it is “critical” that “adequate safeguards exist to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse.” Then again, this latest inspector general’s report essentially reiterates past assessments and the feds haven’t bothered to take action.

It’s yet another black eye for the famously inept federal agency charged with policing the nation’s financial industry. Over the last few years the SEC has made headlines for a variety of shameful transgressions, including high-ranking managers spending work hours gawking at pornography web sites on their government computers. Among them were senior officers with lucrative six-figure salaries.

The beleaguered agency has also come under fire for wasting nearly $557 million on luxurious office space it will never use and lying to cover up the wrongdoing. A few years ago the Justice Department investigated two high-ranking SEC enforcement officials—both of them attorneys—for illegal insider trading. In the course of that probe, authorities discovered that the SEC has no compliance system in place to ensure that employees with tremendous amount of nonpublic information don’t engage in insider trading.

Then there was the botched investigation of the largest Ponzi scheme in history. The incompetent SEC investigator who missed Bernie Madoff’s illegal, $50 billion Ponzi scheme actually got a cash bonus for his good work. A scathing SEC Inspector General report exposed this atrocity and outlined how the agency failed miserably to catch Madoff, who defrauded investors out of billions and eventually pleaded guilty to 11 felonies.

The federal lawsuit filed recently in Washington D.C. by the former SEC assistant inspector general, David P. Weber, is related in part to the agency’s scandalous handling of the Madoff case. Weber, an attorney who supervised investigations of fraud, waste and abuse at the watchdog claims in his complaint that the agency retaliated after he reported to Congress and SEC commissioners misconduct by officers and employees. Before joining the SEC Inspector General Weber worked for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Treasury Department and other financial regulatory agencies.

 His lawsuit asserts that the misconduct compromised the integrity of several inspector general investigations, including highly publicized inquiries into the SEC’s handling of the Madoff Ponzi scheme. Weber also disclosed to the commissioners and Congress the existence of severe breaches of SEC and national stock market computer security, according to the complaint. The breaches were caused by intentional or grossly negligent mishandling of sensitive computer equipment and data by SEC employees and management officials, Weber alleges.

Instead of taking action to remedy the “significant failures” SEC officers and employees tried to “cover-up” and “white wash” the “public relations disasters” by discrediting Weber and defaming him in the media, according to the lawsuit. Weber was subsequently placed on a forced administrative leave and was later wrongfully terminated. Additionally, SEC officers and employees physically threatened him and talked openly about wanting to carry a concealed firearm to work.

Jackson, son of the famed civil rights con man with the same name, is not the only U.S. House member to accomplish this feat. We’ve seen this around the country in the past few elections, most notably in Florida and Louisiana. We’ll get back to those after going through Jackson’s remarkable reelection this week despite being out half a year with a mysterious “mood disorder.”

A member of Judicial Watch’s Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians list, Jackson has been under FBI scrutiny for participating in a political scandal involving President Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat. Details first surfaced during the 2010 federal corruption trial of impeached/convicted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Jackson attended a 2008 meeting in which his top fundraiser (recently arrested in a separate bribery scheme) tried to buy him the Senate seat vacated when Obama got elected president, according to court testimony.

Jackson has been absent from Congress for months on medical leave and didn’t even bother campaigning. Furthermore, no one knows when he will return to work to represent his Chicago-area constituents in the “people’s house.” Yet he won by a landslide and delivered a statement from a Minnesota clinic where he has been receiving “intensive medical treatment” for his mood disorder. One mainstream news headline read: “Jesse Jackson Jr. Wins Reelection From Mayo Clinic.”

In Florida Alcee Hastings keeps getting reelected even though he is a rare species, one of only a handful of federal judges (they are appointed for life) to get impeached by Congress for his role in a bribery scandal. The veteran Democrat has also been embroiled in a number of scandals and has been ranked No. 1 out of 435 members of the U.S. House for nepotism because he abuses his position as a federal lawmaker to benefit himself and his family, mainly by paying his girlfriend and relatives salaries and fees.

Hastings is also a member of Judicial Watch’s corrupt politicians list. Last spring JW filed a lawsuit against Hastings on behalf of a female employee (Winsome Packer) who was repeatedly subjected to “unwelcome sexual advances, unwelcome touching” and retaliation when he chaired the United States Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, led to a House Ethics Committee probe as well. Yet the 72-year-old Hastings retained his seat by a wide margin this week.

We saw similar loyalty among voters several years ago in the case of William Jefferson, the immensely popular Louisiana congressman who earned the nickname “Dollar Bill” for stashing a $90,000 cash bribe in his freezer. He eventually got convicted of nearly a dozen corruption counts—including bribery, racketeering and money laundering—and was reelected after the feds issued the scathing indictment.

At least voters in districts on opposite sides of the country—one in Florida and the other in California—had the sense to doubt incumbents with shady records. In south Florida, Republican David Rivera, also a member of JW’s corrupt politicians list, became the only Miami-Dade congressional incumbent to lose his seat in recent memory, according to a local news report. Rivera has been embroiled in a campaign finance scandal and was recently spanked by the state’s ethics committee

In southern California, three-term Democrat Laura Richardson, also a member of JW’s corrupt pol list, was handily ousted by her fed up constituents. Richardson was recently reprimanded and fined by the House Ethics Committee for illegally forcing her congressional staff to do political campaign work. Previously she was in trouble for the foreclosure of three homes she used to get cash to finance her political campaign. Richardson abused her power to get one of the properties back after the bank had sold the foreclosed home to another party.

The cash—more than $13.7 million—mostly flowed under the leadership of ousted Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, who lost reelection in 2010. During his tenure Fenty was embroiled in a variety of scandals, including the use of taxpayer-funded ads to promote a family business that donated big bucks to his political campaign and controversial trips to Dubai and China on taxpayer time. Judicial Watch obtained documents related to the questionable jaunts which were financed by the foreign governments while Fenty served as an elected official of a U.S. city.

During that time, a charity (Peaceoholics) headed by Fenty’s pal got lots of federal and local cash without being held accountable for how the funds were spent. Several local newspapers have reported on the scandal in the last few years, but this week the area’s mainstream paper published a lengthy exposé that should make most people cringe. It outlines how millions in federal and local funds have been poured into “affordable” housing projects that were never completed.

The scathing article apparently embarrassed some members of the D.C. Council, which has been napping throughout this scandal. One councilman, Michael A. Brown, issued a press release following the story expressing deep concern by “evidence that has been uncovered pointing to unethical behavior and possible criminal malfeasance.” Brown is calling for an “investigation” of a more recent $4.6 million that Peaceoholics got to transform distressed apartments for troubled young men.

Instead, the project became something of a spending free-for-all for developers and contractors who knew redevelopment money was out on the street and in the hands of a novice nonprofit with unchecked authority to spend it,” according to the news story. It goes on to say: “The project was overseen at the housing agency by a top manager with real estate interests of his own who, along with other housing officials, often failed to impose fundamental spending rules and regular oversight. Instead of competitive bidding, Peaceoholics did business with friends and associates. Work often wasn’t tracked or documented.”

As outrageous as this may seem, this sort of thing is par for the course in D.C.’s perpetually corrupt government, which has been rocked by a series of scandals in recent years. Last summer Mayor Vincent Gray, a veteran councilman, was the subject of a corruption investigation for paying a mayoral candidate to stay in the race and trash dethroned, then-Mayor Fenty.

After becoming mayor last January Gray came under fire for hiring an army of senior staffers with lucrative salaries while the city suffered through a painful $400 million budget shortfall. Among Gray’s highly-paid employees are the son of his chief of staff and the daughter of a close adviser.

Who could forget Mayor Marion Barry—elected to the D.C. Council four times since his drug conviction—starring in an FBI surveillance video smoking crack? Barry, who represents Ward 8, has since been in trouble for failing to pay his taxes, violating the terms of his probation and stalking a former girlfriend.

This type of frivolous spending is the last thing Americans need to hear just as the federal debt tops a whopping $15 trillion. Already, public opinion of Congress is at an all-time low and this report, appropriately called “Wastebook 2011” will only add to the fury and mistrust of those running the country.  

In all, the Wastebook highlights more than $6.5 billion in “unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority” government projects in the last year alone. It illustrates that Washington is on a shopping binge, spending money it doesn’t have on things that are absolutely not necessary, says the Oklahoma Senator (Tom Coburn) behind the report. He points out that nearly $2.5 billion was added to the national debt each day in 2011.   

Here are a few examples of the government’s manic spending spree this year. It wasted $12 million on a failed energy-saving project in Pakistan, according to the report, and gave China $18 million for social services and environmental programs even though its economy is doing much better than ours.

Two million dollars helped pay for a wine exhibition and culinary center in Washington State and $765,000 were blown on a pancake franchise that was supposed to get built in an underserved community of Washington D.C. but instead went to an upscale neighborhood known as a shopping hotspot for well-to-do yuppies. A video game preservation center in New York got $113,000 and $550,000 financed a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The list goes on and on with too many examples to list here, though one more expenditure merits mentioning. Nearly $200,000 went to a university study involving how cocaine enhances the sex drive of Japanese quail. You can’t make this stuff up. Just check out Senator Coburn’s 98-page report, which is linked above.