Charitably, in government terms that's not a lot of money, and given congress gets a new set of bumpkins and rubes every four years, having current rigorous dat

Charitably, in government terms that's not a lot of money, and given congress gets a new set of bumpkins and rubes every four years, having current rigorous data and evidence relating to the beliefs they might be bringing into the job seems like a wise use of funds. The UAP thing is also mostly a lever for narrative control, where whenever the news gets a little too close for comfort, you can release some alien files and knock something out of the news cycle. $22-million gets you a whole bunch of dry powder for less than the cost of a crisis management firm on a political campaign. People will believe anything, and while you can rarely convince them otherwise, you absolutely can become the source for confirmations, and they'll follow whatever confirms their beliefs. Who cares what they actually believe so long as they're dependent on facts you control to believe it. That's just the game.