I wonder though if it needs to be malice or simply lack of will / motivation. If you have pressure from both sides (and the politics that initiated this) it can really kill any motivation to really dig and and do your job. Combine this with all the turbulence in federal gov positions, it might just feel like a total shit show to work there and some people may just putting in their time for the pension or w/e.

A lot of maybes, but I do wonder if the wheels of government are still recovering and whether the consequences of this are sometimes indirect and not so obvious. Bad management can leave waves.

TBH if I worked in public services over the last few year I'd probably feel pretty under-appreciated and it would be hard to motivate myself.