Given how obviously impressionable and just not “on top of things” the politicians are in the US these days, I’m not sure someone could come up with a argument that convinced me that alien life with the ability to do interplanetary travel would waste their time trying to communicate with our leaders.
Within a day they would just decide to kill all of us for the safety of the galaxy.
I bet the people you approached about finanching thought you were full of hot air.