A good starting point would be if the political "leaders" would start to lead government instead of fighting each other all the time. When I lived in DC I knew some government workers and they all told me that their agency's top leadership doesn't seem to be interested in managing the agency but just wants to score political points and hand out contracts to preferred providers. Priorities change every few years when a new president comes in.

In the end I think Americans need to stop talking about "government" as something that's separate from them but instead work on the institutions to make them better. You can't expect good performance without good leadership.