The US government has no incentive to succeed in the way that you or I understand it: i.e. by producing something of value, operating an organization efficientl

The US government has no incentive to succeed in the way that you or I understand it: i.e. by producing something of value, operating an organization efficiently, or achieving a useful result. I mean, the government as a whole might in some abstract sense, but the individuals that comprise the government certainly do not, and the individuals are the underlying reality here, not words in the Constitution or whatever. “Success” in the government is defined solely by justifying your continued budget to a bunch of other people who are largely as unaccountable for results as you are. “Great success” is achieving an expansion of your budget. And the best way to achieve an expansion of your budget is to figure out how to blame your past failures on having too small a budget. As a mentor of mine once said: “The private sector is about cost minimization. The government is about cost justification.” So the consequence is that “failure” in the government doesn’t really mean you failed to achieve your result. It means you failed to properly document and justify your costs. If you have all the proper documentation and followed all the proper procedures and yet you still failed to achieve a result, that’s okay! It’s obviously not your fault, and since you’re so good at following procedures the government will happily entrust you with more money to fail with next year. Actually judging whether you’re any good at producing results is way too complicated and subjective for any government funding office to evaluate. And subject to liability and discrimination concerns as well. But it’s easy and unambiguous to verify whether you followed the proper procedures!