It's becoming clear much of that "inefficiency" is hidden complexity which non-experts fail to grasp, redundancy and safety (e.g. nuclear safety) and areas that lobbyists just don't want to exist, like every regulator acting in the public interest.
The stranger part is that AFAICT, eliminating all of this complexity is a rounding error unless the topic is the military or mandatory spending. They went white as sheet when someone suggested they would touch something that could matter.
People, including me, are really, really bad at estimating risk and the real price of safety. It all looks very inefficient and everyone is so sad being parted with the safety money when there is no apparent danger. But when danger comes, suddenly the mood changes and people pay out of the ass to get out of trouble.
This push and pull is at a lot of places where decisions around resources are made. Like in their private lives, when people don't really talk to each other right up until they are about to lose the other, like a parent, or their partner.
