Get out of the big cities, and the state and federal governments might as well not exist. Even in the cities, their power is tenuous at best, as they're competing for power with organized crime, unions, each other, etc. Governments have far less power than you think they do, and they definitely spend a lot of effort making you think they have more power than that. Their power is an illusion that only affects the NPCs, unfortunately, there's a ton of NPCs.