See [1] for a response on relative dollar comparisons.

To elaborate on what I mean by seeing things through an economic lens, imagine you see a problem that you need to fix. As this problem directly affects you, you're going to make sure that what you're doing is extremely likely to lead to a solution. And since you're also personally paying for it, you're going to keep costs as low as you possibly can. Your focus is on the solution and on minimizing costs. When government, high level or federal government in particular, solves problems they're taking on issues that frequently do not directly affect them. And they're spending other peoples' money. This leads to a rather broken system of motivations. Whether the prices involved are reasonable, or whether it's likely to lead to productive outcomes are not as important. Instead only the spending of money is seen as their action and role.

I think an interesting 'parable' for government spending is Alaska. Like you may know Alaska is the only state with something like a basic income. They have their permanent fund [2] which each year pays out a substantial dividend to every single man, woman, and child living in the state. It reached as high as $2,700 in 2018 'kind of', but where did it come from? Massive oil reserves were confirmed in Alaska in the late 60s and the state immediately set to leasing access to these fields. It resulted in a great windfall of money like nothing before or since. And what happened to the state as a result of the newly enriched government? Well... not much. Somehow the government managed to waste all their new revenue without much of anything to show for it.

Outrage within the state is what led then to the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund. It is a privately managed fund which receives and invests a certain amount of money from all oil revenue and then distributes those profits back to society. The euphemism for its purpose is to 'ensure future generations will have access to the wealth long after the oil reserves are gone.' In reality, it's about letting society actually have access to the wealth created from the natural resources of their state instead of letting the government waste it all.

That alone is perhaps an interesting tale, but I think the most recent years are what really make the point. In recent years Alaska's government has been running their state into a dangerous deficit. Rather than adjusting their spending or trying to trim down waste or excess, they've turned to plundering dividends. I mentioned that $2,700 in 2018 as 'kind of'. The reason is that the state instead decided to make it $1,600 - effectively and legally stealing $1,100 from each man, woman, and child because they can't responsibly manage their own spending. Perhaps the dangers of having such a program in government control to start with.

I have absolutely 0 problems with some fair portion of my money being used as a means to help better society as a whole. But government does not really seem to be a body capable of achieving this end. And the problem, as I see it, is that government is more interested in throwing money at problems rather than ensuring that those problems are solved. I think the physically closer we get to problems (federal < state < county < city < distict < community < family < individual) the more likely problems are to be solved effectively, efficiently, and rapidly.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17600782

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund