We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers

"This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government." [Emphasis added]

From "the government"????

What you have is a "government of, by and for the people"[1], therefore wouldn't it have been a more accurate statement had Stephen Moore written, "collecting a paycheck from "the people", particularly the proletariat, that is to say, "those [people] who do manual labor or work for wages" in his opening paragraph? After all, isn't that the ultimate source of government funding, it's voluntary working-class members? Try to imagine the condition of any STATE apparatus if the proletariat were to simultaneously withdraw from membership in it[2].
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[1] "Government is an organization that consists ... of all the "citizens" who support the imaginary enterprise. The citizen is just as integral a part of the definition of government as is the King, President, Parliament, or whatever other fancy label some of the participating humans choose to affix to themselves. All governments must have citizens in order to exist." ~ A Theory of Natural Hierarchy and Government

[2] "If one calls himself a citizen, then he is actively choosing to participate in the government organization. If one does not wish to participate, he can simply stop calling himself a citizen. There is no paperwork to fill out. One can just walk away, and fix the thought within his mind that he is no longer participating in the imaginary hierarchical organization that is called government, and just like that, he is out. It is, after all, his innate human right to rule over everything within the lower realm of imaginary creations.

Isn't it amazing just how powerful we are as sovereign human beings?" ~ Ibid.