The liberal view is that it is just tax dollars, it is not like someone had to earn it. It is just something that is there in endless supply....
I never said they were rational.
I could certainly think of wiser use of funds, but the fundamental result is that dollars circulate one way or another, often times - if not predominantly - in directions taxpayers would eschew. Money paid to cronies does not vanish. They eventually spend it some something, or it goes to someone else when they die - mostly to Uncle Sam to spend like a drunken fool. But the bartender says, “thank you!”