Such a sign of the world we live in that restoring a old building raises a billion dollars, but we somehow can't afford to house people who are freezing to death in the streets.
France also has a form of guaranteed minimum income.
Spending a billion to repair a historic national treasure is not only a drop in the bucket at the scale of a country, it’s likely ROI positive due to the tourist revenue that would be lost if France were to abandon their national treasures over the centuries.
Being angry about this is irrational.
Don't forget it can be written off over 50 years or more. That's a paltry 20M/year.
No, obviously, spending money on Notre Dame is getting us more of it, on account of one Notre Dame is more than no Notre Dame.
In fact, cancer research should receive zero funds that could instead be put towards care for needy children.
And we shouldn’t even waste money on those kids, when it should instead be used ito fight climate change.
In practice, most people including me prefer to spread public spending into various projects, and yes, that means that the homeless don't get an absolute priority.
I suspect that you, in your private life, do precisely the same. If you wanted to live your preached values, you would have to live Mother Theresa-like life of ascetism, spending your days and your income to help the poor instead of buying yourself nice electronic gadgets and eating good food.
Do you do that? If not, why do you complain about the rest of the world not doing it either?
Why aren't you taking the freezing-to-death homeless people into your home?