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"It’s about rebuilding government’s capacity to accomplish its basic functions efficiently and effectively."

That is a fairly hopeless aspiration as systems inevitably evolve to perpetuate themselves, not the services they were created to provide.

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I think that framing this as hopeless, and perpetuating the idea the government cannot operate efficiently, is a part of the problem. If a system is created to provide a service, it makes sense that said system would consider its existence instrumental to meeting that goal. This could be a positive motivator to provide the service efficiently and effectively. There are many reasons that it often does not work out that way, but one is public perception that government is supposed to be slow and inefficient.

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