Being a bureaucrat in the US doesn’t pay especially well, probably because US taxpayers are price conscious in a sort of penny-wise-pound-foolish way. (In most states the highest paid public official is the coach of the football team of the flagship public university.) Unfortunately this gets (partially) offset by job security and a pension. So there’s a very strong incentive to not rock the boat. And to let your buddies’ misfeasance or malfeasance slide because they’re only a few years away from retirement. Ideally we would trade of higher pay for more accountability and reward some degree of risk taking. Instead what happens is some kind of inevitable high-profile failure happens, a bunch of rules are put in place, and funding is reduced. I don’t know that there are any easy ways to get from where we are now to a better-functioning system. It seems like at some point we have to penalize opportunity costs of not taking risks or learning from other organizations.