February 9, 2006
DEMOCRATS VS WAL-MART AND MARYLANDERS:
Wal-Mart Is in Maryland to Stay (Lee Scott, February 9, 2006, Washington Post)
Last month the Maryland General Assembly enacted a law that requires large employers to spend a certain percentage of their payroll on health care. The bill was designed to apply solely to our company, Wal-Mart. Since then we've received a lot of e-mails and phone calls from folks urging us to stop doing business in Maryland. "Send those politicians a message," many of our friends are saying. We always appreciate advice, but what we'd like to do instead is send the people of Maryland a different message: We at Wal-Mart stand by you.If we closed our doors in Maryland, a lot of things would happen, and none of them would be good for the working families of this state. Seventeen thousand associates work for us in Maryland. Every one of them -- both full-time and part-time -- can become eligible for health coverage that costs as little as $23 per month. Our stores here collect $112 million in sales taxes and generate $13 million more in tax revenue for state and local governments. We buy $678 million worth of goods and services from 667 Maryland suppliers. Thanks to our foundation and good works in our stores, we donate $3.7 million to local charities in Maryland. And when it comes to our customers, we save the average household more than $2,300 per year by offering the products people want at affordable prices in one convenient place.
We think those are valuable things we do for the working families of Maryland. And we're planning to do more. We will build more stores, create more jobs, offer even more affordable health care, generate more tax revenue, do more business with suppliers and give more money to local charities. Though the General Assembly passed a bill that affects our company and our company alone, we will not flinch in our commitment to our customers, our associates and the communities we serve. Working families want us in Maryland, and we're staying in Maryland.
Posted by Orrin Judd at February 9, 2006 12:49 PM
Maryland, "The Free-loader State"
Posted by: Luciferous at February 9, 2006 1:12 PMIt's no wonder that Liberals hate Wal-Mart, it refuses to act the way Liberals say all large corporations must - as a rapacious, greedy, socially destructive force that robs the poor of their dignity and lines the pockets of rich Republicans.
Instead Wal-Mart, as a private for-profit business concern, is one of society's largest benefactors. It provides a staggeringly large selection of decent to high quality goods at what are generally low prices saving American workers thousands of dollars each year both directly and indirectly. In so doing it manages to provide hundreds of thousands of jobs, it employs many people who's lack of training or marketable skills would have kept them on welfare, it extends health insurance to nearly all it's employees, it manages to be one of the largest charitable corporate givers in America, and it does this all while turning a tidy profit for it's shareholders. Those bastards. They must be stopped.
Posted by: Robert Modean at February 9, 2006 2:37 PMGood for Wal-Mart, making a run at being America's most Christian organization. "Love your enemy."
Posted by: pj at February 9, 2006 3:15 PMBut Wal-Mart does know how to play hardball. Just ask the ex-meat cutters in the company's Jacksonville, Tx., SuperCenter, who voted to unionize and caused the company to contract out the meat department for all of its SuperCenters.
If Maryland forces Wal-Mart to boost its medial benefits, the companty will probably just opt to higher healthier workers, which based on the actuary tables, means generally younger workers, leaving more older workers on the state's medical rolls.
Posted by: John at February 9, 2006 3:52 PMPass the tax on to the people in pricing and explain why. After all it is an expense of doing business. Are there any Republicans in Maryland?
Posted by: Genecis at February 9, 2006 4:58 PMGen, what a fantastic idea. Every sales slip should have a couple cents added to it with a notation that it's a tax forced on them by the Maryland state legislature.
Posted by: erp at February 9, 2006 6:14 PMand print the names and phone#'s of the pols who voted on it.
Posted by: toe at February 10, 2006 12:30 PM