Your response is focused on the roles of monetary and fiscal policies on the economy, which is a different discussion.
Yes, and no. Government's efficiency, measured in US dollars spent for value received, is entirely a matter of fiscal policy. Its net deficit spending is the payment received by the private sector for the resources and labor the government demands/uses. A "balanced" budget makes no net payment for them and effectively steals them.
As a taxpayer, I would much rather see government build two miles of highway for the same money as one mile of highway if both are of equal quality.
This would mean that you would receive only half of what you should for those resources and labor. The government, as the first spender of dollars, is the price setter for the things it purchases.
You being a taxpayer has nothing to do with federal spending, but the payment the private sector receives for its commerce with the federal government is critical to how difficult it is to retire private sector bank debt or to net save in the government's unit of account.
Anytime the government is in deficit the private sector "MUST" be in surplus. That's just how maths works. When you start with a correct context that says the government cannot collect or borrow what it hasn't yet spent into existence and that every deficit represents a surplus in another sector the picture becomes much clearer and you realize that neither taxes nor bonds can be "revenue" for anyone as they destroy money previously created.
Government deficits are not a measure of "efficiency" they are measure of both fiscal stimulus (your point) but when not needed but engaged in due to a failure to constrain spending a reflection of lack of fiscal control (as evidenced by the inflation set off by our government in the US when it poured money into a supply constrained economy).
The quantity of money in the economy is not inflationary. Even Friedman admitted that before he died. Only when the government and private sector compete for available resources can inflation result from government spending.
When the private sector is not functioning, such as in a global pandemic, the money it would normally provide in the economy must be replaced or supply chains collapse and bank default skyrockets. Things that are scarce will become more expensive, but only on an item by item basis. The money will always have the same value of one tax credit.
Government could accomplish all the monetary goals you outline without competing with the private sector for goods and services by increasing or decreasing the amount of currency in the system. That was essentially what happened under some of Bernanke's quantitative currency strategies.
QE does not increase the money supply, as someone gave up the liquidity of their reserve holding to purchase the bonds originally. It is simply an asset swap of one form of money for another.
I'm not a fan of the practice, as it directs liquidity to the sector of the economy that least needs it. To prevent the excess reserves from doing mischief in the economy it then becomes necessary to raise bond rates above their natural state, which is close to zero almost all the time.
Overwhelming the banking system with reserves without providing an alternative investment vehicle meant investors had to find a "next best" place to park money, and that has historically been America's real estate market. This should be viewed as an opportunity for Congress to spend money on needed infrastructure to produce deficits/bonds to recapture much of excess, and that may have been an assumption the Fed made. If so, they obviously didn't account for Biden's conservative/neoliberal leaning.
