Something that seems hard for people to grasp is that "stultifying bureaucracy" wasn't an "answer". It's the natural consequence of not having an answer. We have the luxury of sitting back on an Internet forum pontificating on the drudgery; they have to enact the laws that Congress passed.

> There must be some government out there, somewhere in the world, that has sorted out an efficient, effective procurement process.

The main examples of the same scale and scope as the US are Brazil, China, Russia, and India. All of these have been regularly painted as worse: more corrupt, more stonewalling, more favoritism. Whether that's just American propaganda or if there are specific processes that can be imported without breaking things is worth examining.