> We can't be efficient if we can't even explain our reasoning
You're confusing transparency with efficiency. Military and international politics decisions often need public lies or omissions for political reasons but that doesn't mean they're inefficient for their intended purpose. If you word it more honestly as "The government can't be efficient if it doesn't explain its reasoning to the public", then it obviously doesn't follow from the definition of waste.
They go hand in hand. Or is it fine that the government is openly lying about how it claims to want to be "America First"?
>that doesn't mean they're inefficient for their intended purpose.
And that's what I ask. What is the intended purpose? I fail to explain it, and even with my most cynical interpretations I don't see how this is an efficient route.
Transparency would help a lot in evaluating if they aren't being wasteful. But as is, it seems to be a bunch of special interests all clashing with one another in the White House. They don't make sense because there's no unified plan.
You're saying that just because you don't know the purpose, there must be no useful purpose.
> even with my most cynical interpretations
Of course if you're thinking cynically, you won't come up with anything good.
Anyway, the definition is stupid, it says "or become dissipated" which is probably meant to refer to waste energy from a machine but without that context you could consider social welfare spending to be dissipation of money, so the most efficient way for the government to spend would be on huge concentrated projects.
You're confusing transparency with efficiency. Military and international politics decisions often need public lies or omissions for political reasons but that doesn't mean they're inefficient for their intended purpose. If you word it more honestly as "The government can't be efficient if it doesn't explain its reasoning to the public", then it obviously doesn't follow from the definition of waste.