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The Day Care Debate: The “Enlightened” Meet the “Uninformed”…
February 27th, 2007 by 
Halli
…in the Idaho House Health and Welfare Committee…or at least that’s what the self-anointed Idaho intelligentsia would have you believe.
Monday the Health and Welfare committee voted down a bill designed to drastically tighten regulation of daycare providers and facilities. Originally, the proposal would have affected those caring for as few as 2 children not related to the care provider.
Of course, this was framed as the informed (“experts” such as executive director of the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children and a representative from the American Association of University Women of Idaho) vs. the uninformed (the six members of the Health and Welfare committee objecting to the new rules).
These “experts” went so far as to say the six were “definitely out of touch” and “living in a time warp” for opposing such “common sense” proposals. I suppose these are insinuations that the six men were not raised in families, never married, nor had children of their own. But I digress.
When there were objections to this bill, sponsor Democrat George Saylor of Coeur d’Alene offered an amendment increasing to six the minimum number of children required for a daycare to fall under the proposed rules.
However, that didn’t change a nearly incomprehensible point system used to determine the ratio of caregivers to children, the $150 initial fee (with $90 biennial renewal), additional fees charged for criminal background checks, and extensive inspections.
Perhaps I’m “out of touch”, as well, but I assumed most parents use daycare in order to work to earn money to support their family. Increasing the cost of daycare through such regulation would only hurt these families.
On second thought, perhaps the new rules would raise the cost of daycare sufficiently to convince more mothers to stay home and care for their own children. Now I’ve proven I’m “out of touch”.
Representative Tom Loertscher, member of the committee, commented, “There is no substitute, there is absolutely no substitute for families taking care of children.†Perhaps he isn’t as uninformed as some would have you think.
Fortunately, this bill was voted down in committee.
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Posted in Idaho Legislature | 
2 Comments »
March 5th, 2007 at 7:33 am
“There is no substitute, there is absolutely no substitute for families taking care of children.†Well no kidding Tom, but when families do not do this, is exactly when the government needs to step in to make sure that there are proper safety nets in place. That’s like saying, the home is the best place for a family to eat dinner, so therefore we will not have any health or safety regulations on restaurants to keep people eating at home. Come on, if anyone thinks that a single parent will not put his or her child in daycare because they killed this bill is at best naive, and at worst an attempt at social engineering. What about the single parents? Wait, since they killed this bill fewer parents will get divorced or die. What color is the sky in your world?
March 7th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Is this the same Tom Loertscher who in 1996 voted to slash welfare? That change pushed more than 20,000 poor Idaho women into the work force — and their children into government-subsidized (at a cost of $31.2 million a year) day care.
Not that Loertscher has anything against welfare — provided he’s the one getting it.
The Environmental Working Group estimates Loertscher has raked in more than $900,000 in farm subsidies during the past 10 years. Included in that is $765,000 he received through the conservation reserve program. Essentially, he got that money for doing nothing.