The public sector is inefficient compared to the private sector as experienced by the client because the public sector’s budgets, hiring authorities, and revenues are set by the legislative process which is not responsive to shifting demands, technologies, etc. Even the highly professionalized public sectors are vulnerable to this, as you can see when the Army decides it doesn’t need a base anymore but Congress says it does. And we keep electing people who tell you outright that they are going to deliver less efficient and good services in exchange for lower taxes.
You can’t throw some genius MBAs at that simple dynamic and fix it. There are not a bunch of geniuses who ruthlessly manage geniuses in the private sector. They just are able to redistribute and invest resources in a quicker and more focused way because they don’t have a whole bunch of elected barons who are only accountable to voters they can dupe calling the shots.
LOL, the private sector actively fucks up the public sector. The IRS has a pilot online filing system in some places that’s actually pretty good. It took this long and you can’t use it because private tax preparers have been lobbying to keep the IRS paper based and shit.