Tere lies the heart of the problem. Getting more things done but not getting the policy that caused the need to get things done..undone. With good basic policy there is no need for politicians to get things done.
The bureaucrats now have enormous power. Congress writes funding authorization bills and leaves everything to them. It’s been so bad for so long, that Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats swore publicly that that’s the way it’s supposed to work. Once they’ve authorized the bureaucracy to get involved in something, there’s no limit to their rule. Barack Obama obviously thinks so too - like when he told the EPA to inaccurately characterize CO2 as a pollutant in order to take control of market via energy.