Not all of business believes in more efficiency as you describe it. I'd argue that most IT departments are just as much a jobs program as NASA, and probably for a lot of the same reasons.
I can remember 3 huge contractions in the IT industry (early 90s recession, NASDAQ meltdown, present day). When was there ever a comparable mass-layoff scenario in the government?
A large number of people signed up for each of those conflicts and where let go. Granted, there were also a large number of conscripts, but even ignoring conscripts they were huge reductions in the government workforce.
Edit: The Works Progress Administration (WPA) is another example which was closed down by Congress and the war boom in 1943 and provided almost 8 million jobs between 1935 and 1943. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration) After employing 8 million people.
