Yes. There are, of course, plenty of people who work in the federal government who do it because it’s a job with decent benefits and so on. But there is a significant chunk of them, I would guess the majority from my dealings, who take pride and working for the government and serving the country. It’s one of the intangible benefits of the job. That’s what makes this insanity all the sadder.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t met a single federal employee that regards their job as some form of patriotic duty. Quite the opposite from what I’ve experienced, it’s mostly “I don’t make as much but at least I can’t get fired”.
It's going to dramatically depend on department. EPA? Probably a passion, but also not a lot of other places to work for those exact jobs. IRS auditor? Maybe; maybe that's the job they could get, or maybe it's a choice between that and making $$$ at a big-name consultancy. 18F? Almost certainly a choice of patriotic duty, because those people could walk into any big-tech job and make multiple times their salary.
