I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise, but I am going to put a note here so people think critically about what you said - first off, cultural impact - during the cold war the CIA dumped many uncounted millions into arts funding in an effort to control people's perceptions. By most accounts it was a success, and ideas they funded have dominated the way people think about art, creativity and communication ever since.
Next, value for your dollar. Sweden funds their music industry to the tune of something like $30-40 million, and the industry returns that in the billions. Funding the arts is profitable.
Public arts funding does suffer from cronyism and nepotism, so does literally any other type of government spending - but at least where I'm from most of the arts funding bodies are actively trying to solve that, I don't think you can say the same about defense contractors.