You must be somebody who's never had to remove an underperforming colleague on a public project.

What happens is that they get promoted to another team, or put on a project that has absolutely no future, and everyone knows it.

Why is it difficult to remove people? Because in the old days, newly elected executives would clear out the civil service and hire or contract with people that supported their election campaign.

Underperforming colleague is a different problem - the cost differences we are talking about here are not 50%, they are 5X, those only come from structural problems, not 'this one guy only works 5 hours a day"

They wouldn't have a reason rip themselves off, but the decision-makers may not be well-incentivized to control cost (or might be incentivized to make "safe" choices over "smart" ones).

I have wondered if we could ~endow government agencies in a way that would let them fail, and do the same to spin up ~internal competitors when we feel like turning up competition/innovation.

But it's not something I have gamed out enough steps to feel confident about...