Who are those overpaid, underworked "Bureaucrats"?

The short answer is probably "your neighbors". Politicians like to rail against "bloated Washington bureaucracies" with thousands of employees who have who are not required to show up for work. Since there is a kernel of truth to it, it's mischaracterization that is easy to get behind if you don't do your homework. More than 80% of federal employees live (and work) outside the Washington D.C. area which includes Virginia and Maryland. The average GS grade is GS-11. You can Google the federal pay scale and see what a GS-11 earns in your area. Nobody disputes the claim that federal agencies could meet their mission requirements with fewer employees. The big issue boiling up today is that the task of deciding the size of staff reductions is not in the hands of professionals who are responsible to the public for the performance of their agencies. It has been ceded to the so-called "Department of Government Efficiency" which is neither a government department nor focused on actual efficiency and is responsible to no one but Trump. It might have been better called the "Federal Institute for Reducing Employment" or FIRE. While there is room for a discussion of whether the team's goals are honestly stated, anyone with a modicum of common sense realizes that the process being employed is being excessively rushed. That is not by accident. It is not clear why the administration is bent on tearing down agencies basically intended to serve the public, organizations that took decades to build, in a matter of days, weeks, or month. If Trump is to be believed, DOGE is temporary and will be gone shortly. The damage to vital government services will be done. The cheers from MAGA believers will still be hanging in the air when they begin to realize how much their lives and the lives of their families, children, and grandchildren will be negatively affected.