“Wow, if I made $250k/yr, the govt could take 60% of it, and we’d still make more than we make now combined.”
You are forgetting the additional work load, travel time, employee hassles, etc that go along with it. In the private sector, those incomes usually mean a very large responsibility.
$ wise, I would still have more. Of course, I would never want a job that paid that much because, as you say, the responsibility and workload is way more than I want. Money isn’t everything.