Except the same thing happens at the state level, and the same thing happens in corporations and in business. The justice system as well is rife with politics. DAs doing thigns solely for being elected or political reasons as opposed to what is being done right.
The right likes to think its solely the federal government that is like that, but it infiltrates everything humans have their hands in
On the contrary, my friend, what you are pointing to is one of the greater conservative insights,
Public Choice Theory
Economists who study behavior in the private marketplace assume that people are motivated mainly by self-interest. Although most people base some of their actions on their concern for others, the dominant motive in people's actions in the marketplace—whether they are employers, employees, or consumers—is a concern for themselves. Public choice economists make the same assumption—that although people acting in the political marketplace have some concern for others, their main motive, whether they are voters, politicians, lobbyists, or bureaucrats, is self-interest. In Buchanan's words the theory "replaces... romantic and illusory... notions about the workings of governments [with]... notions that embody more skepticism."
The only things that force state or (more likely) local government to be even slightly better is it's greater proximity to those it screws over, the fact that, given the smaller scale, issues are inherently less complex to begin with, and the fact that
rational ignorance plays less of a role, since the immediately impacted local community can have swift impact if it mobilizes.
(same source above):
One of the chief underpinnings of public choice theory is the lack of incentives for voters to monitor government effectively. Anthony Downs, in one of the earliest public choice books, An Economic Theory of Democracy, pointed out that the voter is largely ignorant of political issues and that this ignorance is rational. Even though the result of an election may be very important, an individual's vote rarely decides an election. Thus, the direct impact of casting a well-informed vote is almost nil; the voter has virtually no chance to determine the outcome of the election. So spending time following the issues is not personally worthwhile for the voter. Evidence for this claim is found in the fact that public opinion polls consistently find that less than half of all voting-age Americans can name their own congressional representative.
It's easy for a Congresscritter to ignore half the country. It's tougher for a city board to ignore their neighbors.
Private industry isn't more efficient and better at innovating because it's full of people who pursue the public good - but because it faces immediate market discipline in the form of competition (excepting in cases where government protects it from competition, and in those cases, private industry does indeed become less efficient, less caring about it's customers, and less able or willing to innovate). Rational Ignorance on the part of the voter/consumer also plays much less of a role, ensuring that that market discipline is much better informed, as well as swifter:
Public choice economists point out that this incentive to be ignorant is rare in the private sector. Someone who buys a car typically wants to be well informed about the car he or she selects. That is because the car buyer's choice is decisive—he or she pays only for the one chosen. If the choice is wise, the buyer will benefit; if it is unwise, the buyer will suffer directly. Voting lacks that kind of direct result. Therefore, most voters are largely ignorant about the positions of the people for whom they vote. Except for a few highly publicized issues, they do not pay a lot of attention to what legislative bodies do, and even when they do pay attention, they have little incentive to gain the background knowledge and analytic skill needed to understand the issues.
Once you learn to maintain a healthy skepticism of the capability of people to reliably pursue the public good over their private good, and recognize that deep flaws and inadequacies will mark
any human institution, and that only those institutions where those flaws and inadequacies face swift and informed correction can
ever seriously attempt to mitigate them or improve, you have started on the path to the Dark Side, Sampson.