alt Hacker NewsThis is a typical argument for state intervention in the marketplace, but it is weaker if one makes different assumptions about the state of the market absent the intervention. In order to show that it was money well spent, you'd have to show that it's better to have more groups digging, and that there wouldn't have been enough diggers without GovDitch.
Well, also that spending on needless digging would have been the best use of the resources. Instead of spending on something more immediately useful (or leaving the money with the taxpayers).