Not sure which government's employees you are referring too. Russia maybe?
Seriously though, your "FAA examiner" is more than likely a DPE (designated pilot examiner) and is NOT employed by the FAA. These guys are actually independent contractors and are free to set their own rates. As far as reasons they charge so much, the story I have heard is that:
a) you are buying their time. Figure the average PPL checkride takes 4 hours (2 hour oral, 1.5 hour flight with .5 pre and post) your examiner is charging you roughly $50-60/hr to be there.
b) The examiner probably has a real job or is retired and would rather be on his boat or on the golf course but instead he has to drag himself down to the airport and go fly with someone who may or may not try and kill him. cha-ching, please pay another 100 bucks for inconvenience factor, cost of getting out to do your checkride (gas, food, etc) and the occasional new pair of underwear
.
c) DPE's are subject to some liability if you take your shiny new certificate out and crash your C152 into someones house. Most carry additional insurance to cover their a$$es just in case because most have significant assets (ex-airline, -military, -corporate, etc). Cha-ching, another $100 to cover insurance and aggravation costs as well as recurrency training, etc.
So there you have it. Seems very reasonable to me. That being said, one of the advantages of a 141 program is not having to pay those costs. Now, if your examiner REALLY was from the FAA, they do NOT charge a fee because they are being paid by the FAA (or so I've been told). What's the downside? From what I've heard, checkrides given by a true FAA examiner are much more difficult and most people have difficulty passing on the first try. In addition, they are difficult to schedule.
I guess the bottom line is, if you haven't figured it out by now, FLIGHT TRAINING COSTS A LOT OF MONEY!!!