Take a very simple example, the BMV. We've had good internet now for a couple decades and you still can't do basic transactions without going to the BMV in the middle of the day.
Almost all other government agencies have been entirely immune to technological change as well. They are, jobs programs.
Again, I have to say I really hate how my previous comment sounded. There's just a lot to this and I didn't want to try and defend the very idea while arguing about government reform because it would have been an uphill battle. Sorry for how rude that sounded.
The basic idea, though, is that NASA (while awesome) has been building a heavy lift but also disposable and expensive new rocket. There are a lot of traditional contractors (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, ATK) across the country helping to build the rocket. This means jobs. So congress supports the program, despite its cost, because it means jobs. This stifles innovation as evidenced by what SpaceX has been able to do on a fraction of the budget. This branches and goes deeper with organizations like the ULA which charges several times that of SpaceX but has failed, completely, to innovate. Anyways by the time NASA's new rocket will be ready SpaceX will be have been launching Falcon Heavy for years and possibly even launching the BFR. This means SpaceX will have more powerful, more reliable, reusable, cheaper rockets. All this time NASA has been unable to innovate because ??? and now the entire SLS is nothing more than a jobs program.
Thats Congress being dumb. NASA may have become a jobs program, but it isnt supposed to be, and Musk is a response to that, in my mind.
"A surprise billion dollars may sound good. But while adding money to “Space Operations,” the Appropriations Committee also cut $660 million from NASA’s science, aeronautics, and space technology programs that build the telescopes, observatories, planes, and landers that make the agency so beloved. In justifying this decision, the committee wrote that the rocket “is the nation’s launch vehicle that will enable humans to explore space beyond current capabilities.”"