ABC Learning Centres - too important to fail

The Australian government has decided to allocate $22m to bailing out the ABC Learning Centres, of which apparently 40% are not profitable.

Aren't we lucky to have a centralised government there to solve all our problems? Just let them fail. It's not the government's job to run businesses. They're no good at it, if they were we'd all be living in the People's Democratic Republic of XXX, instead seeing the collapse of communism.

Then the new Federal government complained that the previous government didn't manage child care better. Did I mention that centrally planned economies don't work? Letting the market run things seems ideal.

Even the unprofitable centres are probably worth more as going concerns. Sell them off, close them down, but don't subsidise them with our taxes. It seems the only reason they are being subsidised is because there are a lot of them. That seems stupid. Really this is bad policy, which is being followed because the effected group is big. If the effected group was smaller, they'd get ignored.

The big group should be ignored too. Their claim on the public purse is no greater than smaller groups.