When people get paid more, the government gets more tax revenue. Smart government would double this division's resources, but governments are anything but smart.
Further.. almost every business employing people in a State must be setup with that State's authorities. Is there some reason States can't handle wage theft? Is this naturally a federal problem, or even best solved at that level?
"Starve the beast" is also really only a realistic strategy in a corrupt duopoly like America has since the defunding of popular programs is generally political suicide - unless you can reduce everything to "Us vs. Them"ism.
I disagree, having to dance around a phrase coined by those that implemented the strategy themselves, otherwise some people will get offended, is the definition of political correctness.
It's a problem for both state governments and the Federal government: wage theft might span from state tax fraud, federal tax fraud, unemployment insurance fraud, federal contract falsification, etc. Making it into a states' issue is overly simplistic.
In what context were they using it? I know that's what Wikipedia says, but their reference is behind a paywall. From what I can see of it, this is not how this phrase was initially used.
"Starve the Beast" seems to be a specific policy idealism with respect to Proposition 13 and the way tax revenues were being used in certain districts. It does not proscribe a particular administrative style, but rather particular property tax policies.
Here's another source attesting it to the Reagan administration in 1985[1]. To be clear, it doesn't even make sense for it to have come from the larger-government sphere: why would they refer to the US Government as "the beast"?
I have no idea what Proposition 13 is (although I'm guessing it's a California thing). In the context of US federal politics, "starving the beast" refers to a general "pincer" policy of both reducing funding and minimizing the effectiveness of that funding (e.g. by increasing outflows to contractors and other private services while decreasing oversight over those outflows).
[1]: https://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_12_01_01_bartlett.pd...
This isn't a policy that was adopted just because, it's the reason the party gets money (As opposed to stuff like the culture war, which is just the excuse that drives the base out to vote).
Corporates want their pound of flesh for lobbying expenses.
hybrid patterns, seasonal structures, whatever
There are lots of low hanging fruits, which is good because it means space for progress but govt are extremely good at diluting any improvement efforts. Yet most people want higher efficiency / sanity governments.