[sideshowb]

Yeah, this.

Private sector tends to fail at spending correctly for the long term. e.g. the 100 year time horizon required for healthcare.

Government tends to fail at spending on anything that might generate a media backlash (wars excepted) which is probably a good thing in general but can lead to them failing to do the right thing on some occasions. Also extreme risk averseness can lead them to over focus on risk management rather than actually achieving the aim, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation by private companies which can offer the former at the expense of the latter.