This is certainly true of government as an entity and often true of individuals in government. I think the level of evil varies from agency to agency and increases in step with pay grade.

A FEMA flood plain official once told me that "everything is in a flood plain, even the top of a mountain. It's only a matter of what the contours are."

If you mean occam's razor, then I would agree.
Don't you just love auto-correct :)

Bird$ of a color flock together.

That's the biggest problem! Nobody will be fired or disciplined. For one, the union contracts make it very difficult to fire anyone. Furthermore, chances are the map updates were contacted out to a private company.

Generally, to hold a contractor responsible requires cooperation and effort between agency departments or even between agencies. Even at the state level that's difficult and it's much worse at the federal level.

I was once contracted to a state agency through a federal contact. (I like to think I was one of the competent ones.) The contract with my company explicitly held us unaccountable for accomplishing the work they were hired to do. This sounds terrible, and it IS terrible, but my boss explained the reason to me...

The government agencies, our customer, tended to be disorganized and incompetent. No surprise. They also tended to change the project specifications repeatedly. When you need them to make a decision about anything or provide you with something you need (information or physical items), it could take days or weeks to get it.

If you worked under those conditions you wouldn't want to be held responsible, either! The biggest benefit to government in hiring a contractor was that they could demand that I be replaced - my only "protection" was my competence, and when the multi-year project was done so was I. No pension, medical liabilities or trying to find me a new project. In my case I must have made the agency happy because I always volunteered to do random small projects that the Staties would grumble about. They were totally not covered by my Statement of Work but I hated idle time, of which there was plenty.

I've met plenty of competent government employees, but that doesn't make them effective or productive.

Because of the union contract there is no reward for good work or negative consequences for poor work. The capable ones often grow resentful that their incompetent neighbor makes more money or has a higher title just because they've been warming a chair for a longer time.

NO!!!!!!!!!!!! Any competent individual would not work in government aside from the military.

I have a brother-in-law who works for the State Tax Commission, and he's a good guy. I've known a couple of FBI agents who were stand-up guys. That being said, the preponderance of people I've met in government work there because it's a secure job - not because of their overwhelming competence, imagination, or drive. I've often posited how (or even if) it would be possible to move to running government more like a business, but I'm not really sure if it would work.