This is only a major epiphany to proponents of a US-based ideological current, and mostly the result of anti-communist cold war propaganda. The rest of the world is well aware that state projects can and do succeed more than they fail.

Because other government programs waste money, it must be okay that this one did too?

Congress put $15M in the Inflation Reduction Act for the purpose of a study. If they wanted to spend $41M or $400M, don't you think they would have written that number into the law instead?

> But I do not understand why creating a system and letting people use it would be a problem

I don't know how to say this in any other way: it's because it was not authorized by law. That reason alone is sufficient.

This attitude of "well it was for a good cause, I suppose we can just ignore the law in this instance" is the root of many of our problems in this country. At its root it's really just "the ends justify the means" thinking.

Today it may be something you support. But tomorrow it's deportations or illegal recess appointments or unlawful searches and seizures. When you allow certain laws to be enforced and others to be ignored you set the stage for tyranny.

In many ways we are reaping the harvest of this lax attitude toward how laws are executed in this country. I hope this program serves as an object lesson in why complying with the law may seem tedious but is actually the bedrock of our constitutional order.