BTW, there are non-government vehicles that pay more than 2%.

I think you misunderstood something. TIPS pay a fixed percentage PLUS an inflation percentage. Yesterday, 10-year TIPS were trading at 1.975%. That means that every Jan 15th and every July 15th, the "interest" is calculated as half of the fixed rate (the coupon) PLUS the CPI difference over the 6 month period covered. The interest isn't paid that way though, the coupon portion is paid, and the inflation portion is used to increase the face value of the TIPS. The 10-year TIPS auction on 1/23/25 had a coupon of 2.125%. If you had bought $1000 of that issue, today it would be now valued at $1006.39 and it will pay 2.125% of $1000 on July 15th. Keep in mind that these are "face value", when interest rates change in the market, as they do all the time, the actual trading value of bonds changes as well. Even at auction a new TIPS won't necessarily result in a yield of the exact coupon. In fact, the January auction ended up with a yield of 2.243%, higher than the coupon yield.

You can read more about TIPS here - treasurydirect.gov - Marketable securities

And here is a pretty good analysis with all the details (price actually paid at auction, true yield, accrued interest, etc) of the most recent 10-year TIPS auction results - tipswatch.com - New year tips gets real yield of highest for this term in years