OK, this talking point gets way too much play.
Economies are large ecosystems that require many different parts to work in unison. Most modern businesses could not succeed without (at a minimum) (a) laws and police to enforce them, (b) roads and other forms of transportation, and (c) an educated labour force, (d) sources of electricity, (e) clean drinking water, (f) food for their labor forces to survive on, (g) buildings produced by construction forces. While some of these things are provided by for-profit or non-profit companies, others are typically provided by the government for good reason. Each of those things - including the services provided by the government - produce wealth.
Governments also produce wealth by taking on important parts of the economy that do not fit well with markets. A good example is cancer research: much of cancer research is hard to commodify and therefore has to be funded by charities and the government. That sort of research has a proven track record of producing large amounts of wealth and substantial improvements in people's actual lives.
However, its also worth noting that generating wealth isn't really a good goal for a society, because wealth is a somewhat artificial concept. A government could allow folks to steal from one another. Stealing and protection rackets would generate wealth for the participants, but it wouldn't make our societies any better. Rather than consider wealth as an end, its better to aim for improvements in the underlying value of what is being produced in an economy. Part of the role of governments is to ensure that wealth and value go hand in hand by establishing laws and police to enforce them.
At the end of the day, both governments and businesses can be wasteful. Both take on critical parts of economies. Whether businesses or the government should take over some component of the economy depends on a variety of complex factors.
Income redistribution has completely different arguments for and against it.
