Who Pays When Wal-Mart Comes to Town?

Three answers--employees pay with low wages, towns pay in lost local businesses, and taxpayers pay with health care coverage for many Wal-Mart employees. The Wisconsin Citizen Action held a rally on the State Street Steps of the Capitol on Wed, June 1 to demand that Wal-mart pay their fair share for health care. They presented Wal-Mart with a check for $4.75 million dollars that Wisconsin taxpayers paid in public health program costs last year. Legislator Terese Berceau spoke to the crowd about legislation she would propose to require companies such as Wal-Mart to either pay more for employees health care or reimburse the state for this cost(www.madison.com/post/blogs)

Nationally, 26 states have introduced legislation to require states to disclose which employers are shifting health care costs to taxpayers.(www.aflcio.org/mediacenter)

Stoughton has stuggled with the issue of the impact of the larger store there. What would you think of Wal-mart coming to Evansville? What do you think is the solution to the problem of shifting employee health benefits to the taxpayers state wide by large big box firms?