Colin McEvoy’s report on the proposal for in-house child care in Easton’s schools tells us that Sarah Bilotti is a highly valuable, highly capable public servant:
The Easton Area School District is looking into whether it could provide before- and after-school day care at the elementary schools, rather than lease the buildings to outside corporations as has been done in the past…Until recently, the question has focused on whether for-profit organizations should be allowed to provide daycare in district buildings, with proponents arguing against it due to liability concerns and the additional utilities and maintenance costs it could bring.
But board member Sarah Bilotti suggested last week the district check into providing day care themselves, claiming the revenue from participating households could not only cover the program’s costs, but generate additional revenue for the district.
“Debating what to charge outside agencies seems silly when we could be running these programs in-house,” Bilotti said. “There is obviously a profit to be made or for-profit companies would not be trying so hard to get their foot in the door.”…A before- and after-school program formed last year at Greenwich Elementary School, where Bilotti works as principal, has generated $50,000 beyond the costs of the six employees hired to run the program, said Superintendent Maria Eppolite.
Great idea – have the government, with no profit motive, directly compete with private industry.
Or put another way, let's have government bend over more small businesspeople.
Jon, let's say you open your bar. A year later the government decides to open a bar next door. You need to earn a profit to stay alive, the government does not. So that pint of microbrew you're selling for $3.50? The government is selling for $2.50. Bluntly, you're fucked.
Same thing.
Why do you hate small businesspeople so much?
Why would the government open a bar?
Ok Jon, since you're being flip about small businesses getting rammed by government (which is no surprise, you hate small businesses too), let's change the example.
You open a day care, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so. You need to make a profit to survive (pay for reinvestment into FFE, pay your loans, pay a return to any investors, etc).
A year later, the school district opens a competing day care. Only they don't have to make a profit. And they don't have any cost for a facility because they'll use the school building. And they have no investors, so no problem there either.
So where your business needs to charge $75/week/child to survive, the school charges $50. If you drop to $50 to match them, you're losing money on each child.
What happens? You go out of business.
Now tell me what's right about government competing with private businesses again?
This sucks to high heaven.