Centre's daycare woes

It appears that Vanhanen ain't backing down after all:

Prime Minister and Centre Party leader Matti Vanhanen defends the plan, saying that healthy people who stay at home all day should take care of their children themselves. Speaking in Helsinki he added that the fees would serve as an incentive to more sensible behaviour.

However, Vanhanen promised that the lowest fees would not be very high, and that half-day day care would remain free for those with the lowest incomes.

Meanwhile party secretary Jarmo Korhonen is on record as opposing the plan. While reporting on Korhonen's views, the party's web magazine Apila gave the impression (fi) that the whole thing is a National Coalition Party project which "according to Korhonen the Centre can't accept".

I think the government has done a poor job of selling their plan, considering that even someone like Korhonen isn't buying it. Clearly there will be exceptions to the minimum fee, but what those exceptions will be remains in doubt even though their exact nature is very important in evaluating the whole proposal. When the government does a poor job of defining its plan, the opposition is more than happy to do it for them.