I think you vastly underestimate other tools a state had to influence behavior. Education for example is a ridiculously powerful tool that's underused in the US. Don't assume you need to fix things in a week states can have 100+ year time horizons.

Also, if you have 10 equally valid issues at a national level. Then 100% fixing one of them almost impossible and probably extremely expensive where making a 20% dent in all 10 of them is more valuable and probably far less costly.