This is just another result of bureaucracy.
You and I, and most everyone else we meet, operate in the "entrepreneurial" style of management. We live our lives that way, balancing our budgets, buying what we can afford or facing the consequences when the credit cards come due, and so on. This is something we understand, it is normal.
So ponder this phrase: "The Perverse Incentives of Bureaucracy"
Bureaucratic management does not work that way. Bureaucracy is inherently so different from what you and I understand that bureaucratic actions seem perverse, even insane, from the outside.
The incredible waste cited in this article is an inevitable result of bureaucracy, and it could not be any other way. The one and only way to counteract this is to reduce bureaucracy. Get government out of everything.
I recommend the short and devastating book by Ludwig von Mises, "Bureaucracy", available gratis at Mises.org: