Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Christmas Cheer from Walmart

As you head to Walmart for some last minute Christmas shopping, here is some Christmas cheer concerning Sam's little company from Arkansas. Jordan Cooper gave me more ammo against your friendly neighborhood den of theives. These links bring up some interesting thoughts for Christians and Libertarians/ Conservatives who believe in a completely unencumbered capitalism where the government is hands off, that people should not be on welfare (or the gov't's dime for anything) and no higher minimum wage.

More reasons to stay away from Walmart this Christmas.

Inside the Leviathon points out how Walmart hurts average Americans regularly, which should matter to all Christians.

Some Democratic Congressional Staffers wrote a scathing report of the actual hidden cost to American Tax payers for Walmart's everyday low prices. Although written by Democrats, this should have fiscal conservatives up in arms, as well as Christians who believe in justice and fairness.

A quote from these links...

One of the most telling of all the criticisms of Wal-Mart is to be found in a February 2004 report by the Democratic Staff of the House Education and Workforce Committee. In analyzing Wal-Mart's success in holding employee compensation at low levels, the report assesses the costs to US taxpayers of employees who are so badly paid that they qualify for government assistance even under the less than generous rules of the federal welfare system. For a two-hundred-employee Wal-Mart store, the government is spending $108,000 a year for children's health care; $125,000 a year in tax credits and deductions for low-income families; and $42,000 a year in housing assistance. The report estimates that a two-hundred-employee Wal-Mart store costs federal taxpayers $420,000 a year, or about $2,103 per Wal-Mart employee. That translates into a total annual welfare bill of $2.5 billion for Wal-Mart's 1.2 million US employees.

Wal-Mart is also a burden on state governments. According to a study by the Institute for Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2003 California taxpayers subsidized $20.5 million worth of medical care for Wal-Mart employees. In Georgia ten thousand children of Wal-Mart employees were enrolled in the state's program for needy children in 2003, with one in four Wal-Mart employees having a child in the program.
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America's sweetheart is strangling this nation. Merry Christmas!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"California taxpayers subsidized $20.5 million worth of medical care for Wal-Mart employees."

Hmmm...that's an odd and nonsensical statement. If Walmart did not exist at all, these people would not have jobs at all, so the state would actually subsidize their groceries...not just medical care.

Walmart is the best anti-poverty program in this country, and anyone with any economic sense can see that. Do I wish they would pay their employees more? Of course, but it's not my place or your place to dictate how income should be redistributed or how much people should be paid. If I wanted that, I would have stayed in Romania and worshiped Ceausescu.

Democrats are just pissed because they are not getting as much in $ contributions from Walmart as the Republicans, and you guys are falling for this political maneuvering.