Yes, we can.

[Alex]

The problem with government spending a lot of money to successfully prevent (or reduce a problem) is that if they are successful, they're screwed because so many people will believe that the prevention was unnecessary since nothing bad happened. If they fail they are screwed since obviously it didn't prevent anything even if it was the only thing that even had a chance of doing so. If they do nothing and it happens, they are screwed since they should have done whatever was necessary to prevent it. If they do nothing and nothing happens then they got away with it.