I admit, as aware as I am of bloated government, I was astonished to read this. I thought the NSC was small, maybe 20 or 30 people!
Wow. I often try to grasp the scope of government waste by looking at all the "small" pieces of largess from taxpayer money I see locally...some kind of study to look at the habitat of some salamander, a bike trail, a new state park building, some program for jobless youths, a grant to promote art in some way, and so on, and visualize that on a federal scale.
Same with this NSC staffing level. This is one tiny, minuscule part of one segment of government. What must it be like at HHS in the department that manages things like "Midnight Basketball" or some of the more obscure ones? All of that adds up.
There was a great article at the Cato Institute that the graphs shown below are from: Which are the largest Federal Agencies?
Two graphs show this story, one of where the big money is, and one of which ones should be cut:
This one shows the three biggest agencies:
This one suggests which ones would be great to cut: