[avgcorrection]

Government Can Do Nothing Right has been the propaganda line of the right-wing of the American business community since the end of WWII. A lot of the business community resented the social democratic reforms of that time (those ’50s white picket fence times) and so they sought to first argue that government was useless, and then later prove it through their government-sucks politicians.

[cle]

This goes back way before the 1950's. The sentiment that government is a "necessary evil" is effectively what many, but certainly not all, Founders espoused.

[danuker]

Compare OP's story to, say, creating a Facebook account.

Why is the government's solution so much crappier? Why can a private company streamline a web experience much better?

[mint2]

Many Government orgs are underfunded and pay worse than private sector. FB engineers make bank compared to being a federal employee. It’s not surprising creating Fb accounts are easy. Why do we as a society value accounts on an advertisement marketplace more than essential services?

[jokethrowaway]

Follow the money, the government is not making money based on its performance, they just get a fixed amount from people and they can even increase it through legislation and a bit of propaganda.

[avgcorrection]

In my neck of the woods (not the US) people do most government things like file their taxes through websites. And it’s for the most part a good experience.

[Dlanv]

The government probably spend a million dollars on the Treasury direct site, and Facebook spends billions on their site.