Ideally, the government would not waste money. Ideally, we’d all agree what was a waste. In practice, the government tends to overspend greatly on many things. In practice, the government is used by the ultra-rich to become more ultra-rich, though projects such as… oh, look, Keystone XL and “the wall”. Those two projects, I’d say, were pretty much a complete waste of money in the first place. Moreover, I’d say their main effects and impacts were outright evil, from my perspective. And I consider evil (such as environmental destruction) even worse than a waste of funds. Read some non-corporate, non-right-wing opinions about whether those projects should ever have been undertaken, or what good they would do versus what evil they would do. That should answer this “question” pretty thoroughly for you.