TL;DR: economists are still stuck in the idea of the market as a perfect force for reaching optimal outcomes. They’re ignoring the simple fact that businesses are putting prices up purely to increase profits. And that they can do this because the economic ideal of perfect competition (where many small firms compete with near-identical products) does not exist. We have a small number of very powerful businesses—oligopolies—in nearly every market for consumer-facing goods.
I’d rather my taxes go to better universities instead of the war machine. But that would require the government in this country to do a 180 from where they’ve had their priorities for the last 70+ years.