[MsMowz]

> I don't understand how we continually believe the governments know how to spend money better, HN is littered with examples of government projects that have been woefully inefficient with the money they've taken.

This is of course true, but the opposite it true as well. Regardless, this misses the point. The reason people want public interest spending to be conducted by the government is that, with government spending, there is at least some opportunity for democratic (i.e. public) oversight. With private spending, there is only oversight from invested parties.

[lordnacho]

At the risk of sounding snarky, if the oversight worked there wouldn't be all these stories.

Look at the F35 thread that appears here now and again. Loads and loads of congressional districts involved, loads and loads of people with a stake. It still ended up costing an insane amount more than it needed to.

With private actually I don't think it's all that different though, the difference is some of the private ventures are allowed to die once the failure is complete.

Totally agree that public interest ought to matter, just I don't see that it actually holds people to account.

[FooBarBizBazz]

> with government spending, there is at least some opportunity for democratic (i.e. public) oversight. With private spending, there is only oversight from invested parties.

There's an argument that you get the same dynamic either way. In political science it's the problem of "concentrated benefits and diffused costs". Only "invested parties" pay for lobbyists (e.g., Intuit/Turbotax). Others (e.g., everyone who does taxes once a year) find it easier/"cheaper" to put up with the annoyance than to exercise "oversight".