[the_optimist]

How much of the nation’s wealth has been invested in this, and where has it not been invested? Make sure you count lawsuits, paperwork, planning, construction, maintenance, and enforcement. And try not to respond without pointing out something more wasteful, rather than something productive. Let’s pretend you took that money and invested it in advanced education for young black women in Chicago instead. What did we forgo?

[UncleMeat]

A system where we invest our money in only the maximally productive places is not a system that is just. Ensuring that people aren't left behind is a virtue and even if investing in people at the boundaries ends up leading to less society-wide productivity it is still valuable.

Your proposal falls prey to a sort of "investment-productivity monster." What if we identified the brightest kids in 2nd grade and spent all of our education resources on them, while shuffling the rest into the Amazon Fulfillment Centers? Maybe that'd increase overall productivity. But it'd be wrong.

[DocTomoe]

Your reasoning in itself is faulty: It pitches perceived good for one group ("young black women in Chicago") against perceived good of another group ("wheelchair users").

Let's for a moment disregard that there are a lot more wheelchair users than young black women in Chicago, and that the wheelchair users obviously are a lot more disadvantaged - a government is not a business. Its goal is not necessarily to use money "ideally beneficial" in a utilitarian way - its goal is to keep a society working, which in our liberal democracy environment means protecting the weak and keeping things relatively fair (in the sense: to help those who cannot help themselves).

While every young black woman from Chicago can stay in school, attend night school, or spend time in a library, not even the most athletic wheelchair-user can consistently hop their wheelchair (plus body-weight) up the stairs. And even if every single black young Chicago-woman becomes a new entrepreneur, resulting in a larger net-good for society as a whole, the wheelchair-user still would have the same problem.

[vangelis]

There's no guarantee it would be invented in that instead of a new jetski.

[the_optimist]

The reflexive, but non-engaged and and economically dishonest answer here is to avoid the question by comparing any investment to a write-off, this justifying anything. Nobody thinks like this looking forward, as it’s clearly nonsense. That’s why I proposed you not do this.

[vangelis]

Where's the incentive for business owners to invest in the latter instead of reinvesting the profits? I just don't see it.