Presumably the tax payers would have procured something themselves, if you'd have left the money into their own pockets.
See how IBM was on the path to inventing electronic computers for business and accounting, but got pre-empted by the militaries' needs and procurement.
In the counterfactual if there hadn't been a war going on, presumably businesses would have had even more needs for international business machines.
The counterfactual is that the investment required was beyond what even IBM could consider to spend at the time, to the point that even with "guaranteed buyer" in form of military procurement there was strong opposition towards going into "niche computer business".
Military/government procurement provided the demand for which private entities could provide, money and other resources at level that private market never managed.
Without large injection of money supply there's not much extra dollar to chase and safe investments sound like better bets.
See how IBM was on the path to inventing electronic computers for business and accounting, but got pre-empted by the militaries' needs and procurement.
In the counterfactual if there hadn't been a war going on, presumably businesses would have had even more needs for international business machines.