Yes. But when the government spends, which is what the cartoon makes fun of. How do they pursue value? And who taxes them?

If the government spends to build roads in order to supply public goods or perhaps to pacify vested interests or to “stimulate” the economy-no taxation can be leveraged. There is only spending of already appropriated funds. And there is redirection of resources that would have been put to other uses, or would horrifyingly have been “idle”

The road gets built though. And we can look at it, debate it, and compare it to other roads. In the end it is impossible to know, from a whether the road was better than other alternative uses of the resources that went into it. We will never know. We cannot know. All the alternative uses will for ever remain unseen. The equal is true of private spending of course. The private spenders can only eat bull crap for so long though.