This is only one part of it, but pay grades for government employees in the US are far lower than private industry when it comes to things like software developers. Just look at the GS rates [1], why would a good developer choose to make 50% or less of what they could make in the private sector? It'd be hard to convince the general public that we should be paying $100k+ for young devs working directly for the government, which is already more money than most senior level scheduled gov employees.
So we then have this whole convoluted contracting process where consultancies run by people who know how to write and win bids, but know nothing about software engineering, end up being hired to write software systems. All because the government can't really build highly skilled teams on their own.
Again, it's not all of the problem (not by a long shot), but it definitely contributes. Plus, the government employing people directly is socialism, but paying an incompetent consulting firm that plays middle-man to the system isn't.
So we then have this whole convoluted contracting process where consultancies run by people who know how to write and win bids, but know nothing about software engineering, end up being hired to write software systems. All because the government can't really build highly skilled teams on their own.
Again, it's not all of the problem (not by a long shot), but it definitely contributes. Plus, the government employing people directly is socialism, but paying an incompetent consulting firm that plays middle-man to the system isn't.
[1] https://www.federalpay.org/gs/2022