ECONOMIC SUCCESS OF SMALL GOVERNMENT

   The experiment on how to best help the economy — and especially those in greatest need — has been running in real time in jurisdictions across the U.S. and Canada. In Kathleen Wynne’s Ontario, where the fallout from the January 1st minimum-wage increase to $14 an hour is just beginning, the results are mixed. While low-wage workers are nabbing a hefty pay hike, consumers are seeing price hikes as employers try to recover their increased labour costs. Businesses unable to raise prices have begun shutting their doors. And workers are having their hours shortened or their wage hike clawed back by employers cutting benefits or requiring staff to pay for their uniforms.
   The small-government part of the experiment, in the laboratory run by President Donald Trump and Co., is producing opposite results. Even before he signed into law one of the biggest corporate tax cuts in U.S. history, his slashing of regulations unchained the private sector, spurring it to invest in expansion. The hiring that resulted raised median wages, which had been stagnant for four decades, and cut the unemployment rate to its lowest level in 17 years.