Maryland legislators recently passed legislation that will force Wal-Mart (and only Wal-Mart) to pay more money for health insurance benefits.
“We’re looking for responsible businesses to ante up . . . and provide adequate health care,” said Sen. Thomas M. Middleton (D-Charles), the Finance Committee chairman, as the Senate approved the measure with a majority wide enough to survive an anticipated veto. A similar bill has cleared the House of Delegates, and legislators expect to reconcile their differences easily.
Lawmakers said they did not set out to single out Wal-Mart when they drafted a bill requiring organizations with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on health benefits — or put the money directly into the state’s health program for the poor.
But as debate raged in the Senate yesterday, it was clear that the giant retailer, which has 15,000 workers in Maryland, was the only company that would be affected.
“This is crossing a bridge,” said Sen. E.J. Pipkin (Queen Anne’s), who joined the Senate’s other Republicans in voting against the bill. “Annapolis is telling private business in the private marketplace what to do.”
Wal-Mart officials, likewise, condemned the General Assembly’s effort as an unneeded intrusion. “We think that this sets a bad precedent by singling out one employer when it’s a much bigger issue,” said Nate Hurst, a government relations manager at Wal-Mart.
David Brown says that it’s time for the retail giant to fight back.
Wal-Mart execs, here are your instructions. Please follow them to the letter.
One, admit you were wrong about ever participating in any eminent-domain abuse. Two, announce that you are, effective in two weeks, shutting down all of your stores in Maryland and sending all of your employees in the state home. Explain that you do not accept manacles as payment for your productive achievements. Explain that you wish to live in such a way that you neither sacrifice yourself to others, nor others to yourself. Explain that you will be happy to reverse your decision should the commie Maryland legislators rescind their recent commie legislation, so long as they do so within one week of your announcement. And, then, as soon as the press conference is over, begin phasing things out. Hand out pink slips and tell vendors to stop delivering. Then, if and when the commie legislators in Maryland refuse to reverse their obnoxious law in timely fashion, close down everything you have in that state — totally.
When the government tells businesses how to operate (whether it may be a big-box retailer or a small specialty shop), freedom suffers.
Wal-Mart’s only obligation is to make a profit, and the company answers solely to its shareholders (many of them happen to be Wal-Mart employees). Wal-Mart employees work for the company by choice; if they aren’t happy with the pay and benefits they currently receive, they are free to find better employment. At least that’s what I did when I worked briefly at a Wal-Mart store 13 years ago.
Postscript: Apologies to DarkStar for misinterpreting his comments to the above. It does sound silly of me to argue a point especially after there’s agreement. I’ve withdrawn my previous comments, and I’ll do my best in the future to accept agreement (as well as disagreement) gracefully. –DCT
Update: David Brown comments further (with more discussion) over at Blogcritics.
Update 2: Arnold Kling comments at TCS Daily:
Liberals see the market as an arena in which evil corporations inflict their greed on innocent victims. I wish you would see that motives matter less than consequences. I wish you could see that greed is at work when laws are passed that regulate markets, because regulations always produce winners and losers. I wish you could see that those winners and losers are often not who you think they are. I wish you could see that competitive behavior and free choice are forces that operate in the market as a check against greed. Finally, I wish you could see that greed is most difficult to restrain when it is exercised through the medium of government.
I’m not feeling the WalMart mess either.
Not one bit.
I wonder who the lobbyists were that pushed for this bill and how much the payoff was?
The Indian Gaming interests paid Abramoff over 1 Billion for their investment/interests. Who were the ones who invested on this deal?
Darmon, what you say above sounds as though you object to *any* regulation of business. I didn’t think that your position was completely in favor of a completely unregulated laissez fair market.
Personally, while I don’t think that unfair regulation of this sort is appropriate, needed, or beneficial, I think corporations *must* be regulated to some extent, since they are at root, inhuman entities that have the moral compass of an amoeba, that have been granted a whole suite of rights under the constitution as a ‘person’, which as potentially immortal organisms with far greater resources available, they have a far greater ability to excersize than any actual human being.
Deregulate corporations by all means, as long as their ‘human rights’ are removed in equal measure.
I agree with Michael totally. His comments express my stance quite eloquently.
Baklava: The lobbyists were labor unions, which have been a longtime adverary of Wal-Mart (who is opposed to unionizing their stores and distribution centers). They figured if they can’t assimilate them, they can try to legislate them.
Michael: I’ll reply at length to your comments soon.
Yes. The opponents in CA to Arnold were unions. They spent 10 times more than Arnold on message saying untrue things.
Taking $50-$60 per employees pay per month. They’ve affected legislation in the Democrat controlled legislature in CA greatly also.
Michael pretty funnily wrote,
Why would anyone have to respond to that attack based on his incorrect view. He can either learn what we are for or continue making incorrect accusations.
Regulations have been stacked upon regulations in the last 6 decades. 15,000+ pages per year added to the regulations. Singling out one business is the problem here. There are plenty of businesses and big ones in Maryland that do not provide health benefits to part time workers. Walmart does provide benefits just not to all employees. This is not unlike many other businesses. And to OBSESS about Walmart is not a problem that can be diverted to acting like conservatives want to remove all regulations. Diversion is not an option in the debate.
Michael is a friend of mine, despite our differences of opinion. I didn’t view his remarks as an attack.
Thanks for cutting to the chase, as I’ve planned to bring up the items you’ve mentioned.
sorry.
Don’t worry about it. You didn’t do anything wrong, AFAIK.
Darmon, I guess I’m confused. You said
That *sounds* as though you saying that government should just not regulate business.
To re-emphasize: I *do not* approve of unfair regulation like this.
My own position is basically “some regulation: good; too much regulation: bad”, and that we’re currently well beyond the point of ‘too much’ (regardless of whether this particular regulation was even fair).
However, I *also* think that much of the ‘some’ that we already have in place are insufficiently enforced, and where they are enforced, the penalties for violation are laughable, leading businesses to break the law if the additional profit is larger than the penalty or fine (as, in some sense they must to act in their shareholders’ best interests).
I am all in favor of deregulation of various sorts, but I think it’s telling that while most existing regulations disproportionately impact small and medium-sized businesses, most efforts at *de-regulation* are actually aimed at the restrictions that inconvenience our largest corporations. Ultimately, this is a form of regressive taxation.
Michael, I’m well aware of what I said and I’m sticking to it. I’m vehemently opposed to the government singling out certain businesses just because they won’t “play nice” with unions and the like.
Businesses are already heavily regulated as it is. Nowadays, new and proposed regulations are not about protecting consumers and shareholders; they only exist to punish and destroy businesses. The recent anti-Wal-Mart legislation in Maryland (yes, I do acknowledge that you are opposed to it as well) is such an example that is being used by labor union lobbyists and the far left to bring about their warped definition of “fairness” to the marketplace.
A lot of anti-corporate demonization is rooted mainly in hatred of corporations for the “sin” of being successful and competitive.
The best regulator of all is the free market. Don’t like Wal-Mart? Go to work for or shop at their competitors. Hate Microsoft? Run Linux or buy a Mac. Can’t stand Coke? Drink Pepsi. I have yet to hear of “inhuman” beings forcing individuals into “corporate slavery”. But if I do, I’ll report it here on this blog.
Maryland politicians telling Wal-Mart how to spend their benefit dollars amounts to the state engaging in micromanagement of the worst order.
Yes, I believe in less government interference when it comes to private business. More intervention on part of the government (as in the case of Maryland) only makes for a worsened economy.
No argument there, but there is a big difference between that and your original statement, which implied that you beleive any regulation is too much.
I don’t disagree with you there either, I just think that while a free market should be the dominant form of regulation, it should not be the only one, because it would lead to immediate regulatory capture (which we arguably already have a serious problem with, but at least it’s been a slower process).
We both agree that today business is over-regulated. In fact, in this case we agree on both particulars: More regulation was unnecessary, and this regulation was also unfair.
What I’m trying to figure out is whether we agree that *some* government regulation is necessary, and just (perhaps) disagree on how much.
Heh. OK.
Hmm. Well, I certainly don’t disagree that this kind of thinking is behind a lot of anti-corporate sentiment, but not all of it. For my part, I don’t think corporations are ‘evil’ any more than any other natural phenomena is. But we have the opportunity to engineer both their environment and their DNA in ways that make them more humane (if still inhuman), and avert various sorts of disasters.
Sadly, most efforts at both regulation and de-regulation are conceived far too narrowly by entrenched interests of various sorts and end up with all sorts of unfortunate (but forseeable) side-effects, usually a monopoly of some sort.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that regulation in the abstract is a bad idea, just that most individual regulations are bad ideas (and the ones that are good ideas are usually the ones to get the de-regulation axe).