Northern Light
Superstar
Sounds great on paper, but most loans are given to small business. Does Pharma/dental care help someone set up a 2-3 person business in an under-serviced Northern Ontario town that wouldn't be able to afford to offer dental/drug plan anyway? Without the loans, many business wouldn't exist, period. They exist to create employment, keep employment, or generally add value to economy.
Most government grants don't create businesses. You can read the press releases from the relevant programs; they are used to fund expansion/modernization.
My issue w/this is that the programs invariably 'pick winners'; and also don't typically do anything to secure any productivity benefits go to employees (higher wages), or secure above-minimum severance.
On top of which, as you note, in absolute dollars, the big money doesn't flow to small business, and where it does, its often market-distorting nonsense.
Why do we have a horse-racing industry in Ontario that is entirely dependent on government largesse? Virtually no one attends most races anymore. That's well over 100M per year right there.
Why not kebosh that and invest instead in lower tuition, more student places, or the like?
But it's not "efficiency" then, as so many programs are underfunded. It's just calling the dealer out on the fixed shell game.
Well, efficiency, as in the general principles of lean six sigma, means to eliminate any redundant/unnecessary processes and steps in service of delivering your product.
I would argue, eliminating duplicate administrative functions through schools systems and boards qualifies; and I would argue that eliminating programs for business that have, at best, a mixed track record, instead investing in childcare which increases the labour force; or education which increases the supply of skilled workers is a form of efficiency too, by directing resources to where they produce the best outcome for the dollar.
I think we mostly agree here on the desired outcomes and many (but not all) relevant steps.
We just do so with slightly different points of emphasis and a different rhetorical flourish.
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As to the shell game...........indeed, I think what appeals to many people when they hear about efficiency is the idea that they don't get enough back for their taxes.
That the last tax hike they remember didn't produce a gain they remember in their life.
That is a problem.
Its not necessarily about efficiency, it can be about money out the door in tax cuts to corporations etc etc.
But either way, people want to hear exactly how money will deliver value.
I don't think that's an unfair ask.
Its one the 'right' has been more effective at exploiting.