> I don't understand how we continually believe the governments know how to spend money better, HN is littered with examples of government projects that have been woefully inefficient with the money they've taken.

This is of course true, but the opposite it true as well. Regardless, this misses the point. The reason people want public interest spending to be conducted by the government is that, with government spending, there is at least some opportunity for democratic (i.e. public) oversight. With private spending, there is only oversight from invested parties.