If the US government is good at anything, it's failing at technology

Oh, it's not just "technology" that Congress has very little knowledge of. It's everything, everything, that they don't know about save for the one thing that acutely affects them: their ability to be elected. So, tech is no special cookie here. You perhaps think it is because you are intimately knowledgeable of this particular cookie. Their knowledge of being elected and a politician, that's pretty damn good for the multi-termers.

I'm sure this or that politician is actually very knowledgeable about certain things, as much as any well studied and educated person can be, but legislation isn't some collegiate discussion involving facts and proper courses of action. It's a knockdown drag-out fight of acquiring the necessary votes in a room with a 48:48:4 split of yes:no:whoknows. The yes:no decision making is not based on some ethical calculus in a topic. It's "how does it effect my next election cycle".

Ultimately, you can probably blame the electorate for electing these folks. That's what the majority of voters wanted. To change it, the voters have to vote different.