In 1864 you would have been asking Lincoln why the war wasn't yet over. In 1790 similiar questions predicated on the negatives would have been directed at Washington. Hamilton would have been asked why we didn't have a complete public finance system. Roosevelt would have been asked in 1944 why Japan had not surrendered.
We are looking at a short time frame and expecting gigantic changes to occur within it. Changes of the magnitude we are working for will take decades, if not centuries.