As the private sector shrinks the cancer grows

...in the midst of our jobless misery, one group of workers is truly getting "stimulated."

That's government employees. The federal government has added almost 9,000 jobs a month, and the federal payroll has spiked a whopping 10.5 percent, since the current recession began in December 2007, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And guess what? Federal employees are also earning higher wages and benefits than private sector workers do. The average federal worker now earns $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector, according to an analysis by USA Today. "Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14 percent to 19 percent of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months," the paper reports -- and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.

While the rest of the economy is reeling, government just keeps expanding. Why?