Put Up or Shut Up Legis.: Corporate Tax on Employee Welfare Act

[BurtWorm]

Target: Wal-Mart, specifically, which annually costs US taxpayers $2.5 billion because its employees require that much in govt. services:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17647

"One of the most telling of all the criticisms of Wal-Mart is to be found in a February 2004 report by the Democratic Staff of the House Education and Workforce Committee. In analyzing Wal-Mart's success in holding employee compensation at low levels, the report assesses the costs to US taxpayers of employees who are so badly paid that they qualify for government assistance even under the less than generous rules of the federal welfare system. For a two-hundred-employee Wal-Mart store, the government is spending $108,000 a year for children's health care; $125,000 a year in tax credits and deductions for low-income families; and $42,000 a year in housing assistance. The report estimates that a two-hundred-employee Wal-Mart store costs federal taxpayers $420,000 a year, or about $2,103 per Wal-Mart employee. That translates into a total annual welfare bill of $2.5 billion for Wal-Mart's 1.2 million US employees."


The other target is Republican politicians who protect corporations like Wal-Mart (who reward them richly with campaign donations). Dems need to shame them into making it illegal for corporations to pass the buck to government for caring for their employees' welfare. Wal-Mart should be taxed an extra amount to cover these hidden charges to the taxpayer.