[tancop]

selectively giving away free money to big business is straight corruption. there is no other way to put it. everyone involved should lose re election and get investigated by the financial crimes unit.

but i dont think "leave it up to the market" is a better idea. investments like this just need to be transparent, open to everyone and set up strict punishment for stealing the money with prison for executives.

if they wanted to actually create jobs they would support small companies and set up open competitive programs based on project quality. or start a state investment bank giving super low interest loans so factories can expand without cutting profitable divisions like in china.

[tantalor]

One idea I like is directly funding apprenticeship. It pays for job training and classroom instruction on a per-individual basis. The jobs are in long-term career sectors like advanced manufacturing, shipbuilding, aviation, healthcare, and technology.

Here's one example: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/osec/osec20250923

In Georgia, the employer is reimbursed $2,500 when an apprentice starts and up to $10,000 when they finish. They can also get up to 75% of the apprentice's hourly wage covered during their initial on-the-job training.

[winrid]

You mean what companies used to do before we decided to import cheap labor instead?

[SecretDreams]

> One idea I like is directly funding apprenticeship. It pays for job training and classroom instruction on a per-individual basis. The jobs are in long-term career sectors like advanced manufacturing, shipbuilding, aviation, healthcare, and technology.

This is basically what grad school does too. I'm into funding education further any day of the week. For higher education, I'd only add a string attached like "must practice trade in state that funded you if job is available for x years or must pay back funding pro rated".

[diogenescynic]

It will just be abused like the money for in-home daycares and elder care is.

I'd rather they just lower our taxes and quit squandering our money on these programs that never work. I never once hear democrats looking to lower taxes or remove wasteful spending, it's practically encouraged. They defend SNAP recipients buying soda and candy even while admitting there's a correlation between SNAP recipients and having diabetes and being overweight. They do the wrong thing and know it and expect us to ignore that and keep funding these programs.

[glenpierce]

The reason you never hear that is because waste and fraud are very low in reality. That’s why this made the news. It’s uncommon.

We should be using the government to help people and when we do, it often does a good job.

Examples: Roads, libraries, fire departments, schools, safety regulations…

[coryrc]

Our public transportation infrastructure literally cost 10x per mile than France or Hong Kong. That's not waste to you? For what California has spent/is spending on high-speed rail from nowhere to nowhere, China blanketed their country?

Notice you also left out police. How's our spending working there?

[dgoldstein0]

California high speed rail has been a mess. Which is likely in part because politics dictating routes has raised the costs and timelines substantially. On a smaller scale SF was building a new subway in 2013 that had been on the drawing board for years. I remember thinking maybe I'd ride it to work one day. Opened in 2023 or 2024, after I had moved offices twice and then went to work from home. It's not a terrible line but because it had to go to the center of our Chinatown instead of 2 blocks over, it took quite a bit longer and became the deepest subway line in the city. Several other bits of stupidity too in that project but a big piece of the delayed timeline was that tunneling in SF is hard.

Plenty of other transit projects exist that have made real differences. Personally I'm a fan of the simple improvements: revised bus routes with dedicated bus lanes and improved stop & shelters, added bike lanes, etc. those sorts of projects are relatively cheap investments and while no single one is a silver bullet they add up. On a bigger scale - Caltrain's electrification was a big win. Both kinds of projects are easier than building whole new tracks or digging new tunnels. Extend and improve the existing systems. Most cities have something to start from.

[windows_hater_7]

I’d note that China does not need democratic approval for any of its projects and thus is substantially more efficient.

[coryrc]

And another, our recidivism rates are much higher than comparable countries. Is that how we do a "good job" helping people?

[ZenoArrow]

> I'd rather they just lower our taxes and quit squandering our money on these programs that never work.

Would you support cutting military spending? It's a lot higher than other countries.

[WalterBright]

> It's a lot higher than other countries.

That's because the US also defends the free world.

Besides, not spending enough on the military can get very, very expensive.

[deaux]

> That's because the US also defends the free world.

The US invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Iraq have sure helped defend the free world. How many trillions went into those combined? Fantastic return per $ of "free world defense".

[paulddraper]

Don’t forget Ukraine!

[diogenescynic]

Definitely and we should have affordable universal healthcare and subsidized state university tuition. Everything else should be cut as much as possible. I don't see any programs that are working well.

[browsingonly]

> open competitive programs based on project quality

This will never, ever happen. There will always be bonus points available, even if they're awarded to "conservative"-leaning feel-good attributes like veteran-owned sponsor businesses.

These investments are likely to always fail at their declared purpose. Better to put the money towards free childcare and maybe trying to convince parents to read to their kids.

[abirch]

The government should limit innovation and direct resources to proven ROI spending such as free daycare, nutrition, and public infrastructure

[ww520]

It's straight corruption, no matter of big or small business. It should have been randomized blind selection of business who have existed for more than a year, and the granted money pays for new employees' taxes. Blind selection takes out the path to corruption (not who you know to get the fund). Randomized to be fair. Government is bad at picking winners or losers anyway. Business more than a year to screen out frauds. Granted money for new employees' taxes to encourage hiring new employees. Paying the taxes only so that the money can be spread out to more people.

[paulddraper]

Or —- hear me out —- create laws and tax policies compatible with growth, and apply them equally to everyone.

[betaby]

> selectively giving away free money to big business is straight corruption

Liberals in canada call that 'making housing affordable', https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/prime-minist...

It feels that in Canada business is impossible unless it's directly funded by the government.

[diogenescynic]

They're always handed out as political favors or lotteries at best. How is a lottery sustainable or scalable? These solutions do not work. It's at best virtue signaling and at worst corruption (as OP says).