DEAR EDITOR::
Recently, I caught a comment on the editorial page about the
Super Wal-Mart issue.
It comes down to this:
DEAR EDITOR::
Recently, I caught a comment on the editorial page about the Super Wal-Mart issue.
It comes down to this:
1. Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the world.
2. Most Wal-Mart employees earn less than a living wage and most have no health insurance.
3. Wal-Mart is extremely, not just marginally profitable.
4. Other areas of the nation with Super Wal-Mart stores have noted that Wal-Mart employees overburden ER rooms and have little or no money to pay, so the cost of their health care is provided by those with insurance and by taxpayers.
5. Having a Super Wal-Mart in town just KILLS small business owners, who work mostly alone and thus must pay themselves a living wage and must provide for their own healthcare. They must therefore charge more for the same item than Wal-Mart charges.
6. Wal-Mart employees often qualify for and receive food stamps. Wal-Mart doesn’t feed them – we do!
Add this together, and what to you get? Wal-Mart profits are subsidized by taxpayers, and by the higher premiums paid by those who have health insurance.
It amazes me when certain individuals scream about the waste in government services, but think it is just fine to subsidize large and highly profitable businesses with tax money and higher health premiums. – or perhaps, they’re just plain stupid.
So merrily we go, this little town with the least educated population of any other city in Santa Clara County, feeding our children as profit-fodder to Wal-Mart’s, Costco’s, and Targets, as they bleed us of tax money and crowd us out of ER rooms, and cause the upward spiraling of our health premiums. Yea, business! Yea, profits, the new American god!
Hey: Let’s have fun! Let’s count the months before our local ER room shuts down after Wal-Mart opens their doors! You’ll find out when your rush someone or they rush you to the ER and find it closed.
By the way, I am a business owner in Gilroy, and a teacher in San Jose. No union tells me how to think. Here’s a non-union, non-politician remedy: Do what some cities do, and pass a living wage ordinance! Make $12 per hour the minimum in Gilroy, so that employees can meet their health care obligations. Now with this written, I await the epithets, name calling and venom from the Bores of Gilroy. Bring it on. (Snore.)
Tony Weiler, Gilroy
Submitted Monday, Feb. 9 to ed****@****ic.com
