DC and Baltimore is the land of govt contracting where designers and developers can command hourly rates of 60 to 100 an hour based on skill-set. There's tons of demand too and the cost of living is fairly inexpensive.

I just left my high paying govt contract job as I tried working things out with a co-worker who suddenly became a real S#$t to work with .. tried one on one with him & then with management. Overall nothing changed after months so I left and will be starting a better paying job in 2 weeks. There's too much demand to sit and take crap from anyone.