Reply #1: Wal-Mart and you: How your tax dollars subsidize the world's largest

[chat_noir]

An article that cites "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price".

Wal-Mart and you: How your tax dollars subsidize the world's largest corporation

Wal-Mart, the Alpha Dog of discount stores, has also become the Alpha Hog at the public trough.

The phenomenal growth of the world's largest corporation has been supported by taxpayers in many states through economic development subsidies. A Wal-Mart official once stated that the company seeks subsidies in about a third of its stores, suggesting that more than 1,100 of its U.S. stores are subsidized. A national survey by Good Jobs First in 2004 looked at 160 stores and all of the company's distribution centers -- and found that more than 90 percent of them have been subsidized. Altogether, 244 subsidized facilities in 35 states received taxpayer deals of more than $1 billion.

The economic impact of these subsidies on small businesses is given a human face in one powerful segment of Robert Greenwald's new documentary, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price". The sweetheart deals given to two Wal-Mart Supercenters in Hamilton, Missouri undermined Red Esry's four family-owned grocery stores. Esry watched his sales plunge as soon as the Supercenters opened -- he couldn't compete with Wal-Mart's prices and lost almost half of his business virtually overnight.

In the film, Esry's wife ruefully recounts how her husband went to City Hall to ask for a property tax abatement to match Wal-Mart's subsidy, but was turned down. Esry cut costs, but refused to stop paying his employees a good wage and continued to provide them with full health-care benefits and a pension package. Red Esry's story is being played out in thousands of communities across America.

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/34481.html

Comment to article:

By PC Chavez (Submitted: 11/03/2005 3:23 pm )
Wal-Mart is a big backer of Gov. Schwarzenegger giving about $1 million as he vetoed legislation aimed at the company.

Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill that would have forced the state to disclose names of companies whose workers get government health services meant for poor residents. That means you and I pay for it.

A second bill, he vetoed would have stopped employers from locking workers inside workplaces - a policy WalMart has when employees stock shelves and clean floors after closing hours. Something wrong with this picture?

The bills reflect issues creating a public relations nightmare for the USA's biggest private employer, with 1.3 million workers. Wal-Mart endangers workers by locking them in stores, and of reducing its health care costs at taxpayer expense (that's you and me).

Tens of thousands of Wal-Mart employees are on taxpayer-funded health care.

All because idiots think (I said "think") they can get a bottle of shampoo cheaper. Look at what it is really costing us.





http://www.walmartmovie.com/