Which is funny, because the lack of government <-> academic information transfer is so small that any PoliSci PhD has an immediate competitive advantage in almost any bureaucratic setting (this is true at the federal and local levels).

A PhD in government pretty much guarantees that you'll be retiring after a thirty year career as a GS-15 or SES. A 150k salary plus benefits may not be high for some STEM fields, but it's definitely not something to look down on.