> Is private sector waste a big thing?

As anyone who has ever spent any time working in the private sector will tell you:

Absolutely. Large companies routinely piss millions, and billions of dollars away on ego projects, inter-department fighting, building things that are counterproductive to the company's goals, bloating their bureaucracy, and other corporate politics bullshit.

Not to mention that any income that's left is skimmed off the end, by shareholders. I get that they want a profit on their investment, but from the customer's perspective, dividend payments are a great example of waste.

>Is private sector waste a big thing?

sure, lots of big companies have problems with waste. Keeping things lean, focused and uncorrupted gets hard with size and higher hierarchies. But if the incentives are there it is somewhat easier for a private enterprise to avoid waste in all its forms.

>I wonder if there's something simple we're missing for a way to stop public spending that goes to corruption/waste.

Yes, accountability and informed voters. Why is a major who hired her cousin as city manager (even if it was at market rate) still in office?

Bringing reporting to the 21 century with easy to digest dashboards how various metrics of the city changed over the last 12 years or so would also help. The data is mostly there, it's just very time consuming to consume.

  Why is a major who 
  hired her cousin as 
  city manager (...)
  still in office?

Decline in quality local newspapers with original reporting?