How does a politician wanting money to start a service defeat my point in any way? He's not fighting a status quo, he's adding a new service which is extremely sexy for a politician to do, especially in the leadup to an election. Not to mention he isn't actually doing anything yet, he's demanding funding to do something, which is also way easier to do then actually doing it.

A Government entity has no competition, or if they do (like the USPS for example) they can rely on subsidies from the Government and run at a total loss if they need to. I'm not saying this is a good or bad thing, but if you have a worker who knows their performance is tied to their ability to deliver a product and another worker who knows they're pay is coming whether the customers are happy or not, one of those is going to be motivated to make sure customers are happy and the other one is not, and they will act accordingly.