>which tends to be short-hand these days for "in the context of a for-profit company where people actually care about this stuff". I accept that you may not have meant it that way.

Are you think of shareholders instead of stakeholders? Either way, that was not my intention. In terms government, there are lots of ways to introduce new stakeholders with different incentives. These can be inter-agency review, or as simple as a government employee who's job it is to save money, and gets promoted based on that.

>Certainly not. But starting with the claim that a gigantic percentage of US federal government spending is wasted (as the whole DOGE thing starts with) is almost certainly not the way to find actual improvements.

Again, please stop putting words in my mouth.