The government did not take away the private sector engineers salaries, it was corporate America who took away the aging engineers’ salaries and off shored their jobs with cheaper Chinese/Indian engineers.Look up Tax Code 1706. See for example Our Low-Tech Tax Code
The FedGov took it ALL away, and then with the H1B's made sure it could never come back.
If the Fed Gov took it all away why does the CEO, Execs; Executive Staff and Management get huge bonuses at the end of the year and maintain glass/steel palace HQ offices. They look awfully expensive in taste for being impoverished by the Fed Gov regs/taxes. If you want to see a business hurt by taxes and regs, check out the ones where the boss’s office is used metal desks and file cabinets in a small dingy office. See any high tech companies that look like that in Silicon Valley????