THE CENTRAL governing principle of our country and one of the chief reasons for the United States' rise to a dominant global power is the individual freedom that our country guarantees its citizens. America's history of capitalism and a free market economy has worked, and the free rein given to our citizens has resulted in a civilization that prizes talent, achievement and good work.
Our system of freedom and achievement was challenged last week when the legislature of the state of Maryland voted to require companies employing more than 10,000 employees to allocate at least eight percent of their budget toward health coverage or pay heavy taxes to support state Medicaid programs. This move was even more outrageous given that the only company fitting that description in Maryland is Wal-Mart.
Such a targeted attack at a private business sets an ominous precedent for other large companies and, although helping some of Wal-Mart's employees in Maryland, will doubtless discourage big businesses from coming to the state and actually will prevent job and business growth in the long run.
Excellent health coverage is certainly an incentive for employees, but any leverage for better benefits ought not to be government-mandated, but ought to come from the employees themselves. A company's success is determined by how well it markets its product and the quality of service it provides. Even after repeatedly being demonized by the American media in recent years, Wal-Mart ranks number one on Fortune Magazine's list of most profitable companies and is still growing at a rate of about 11 percent every year. Only a few years ago, Wal-Mart was celebrated for its consumer-friendly prices and its ability to improve the economic conditions of an area by bringing hundreds of jobs with each store.
Wal-Mart has been able to provide quality products at affordable prices by cutting costs elsewhere -- be it in employee benefits, store design or even salaries. Wal-Mart is the only company in Maryland that employs more than 10,000 people that will be affected by this new law, so the corporation is clearly being targeted. Nevertheless, the nearly 17,000 employees in the state either must be happy with their role in the company or cannot find work elsewhere. Even in the latter case, it must also be argued that Wal-Mart is providing jobs in areas that lack economic stability.
As Maryland State Sen. E.J. Pipkin so aptly remarked to The Washington Post, "Annapolis is telling private business in the private marketplace what to do." Americans society has thrived on such business in the past and our success might generally be credited to the lack of government interference in the workplace. Employers don't need to be forced to improve their salary or benefit packages by the government; more money and benefits attracts better employees. Furthermore, The Washington Post reported that "there are 786,000 uninsured people in Maryland, and fewer than one-half of 1 percent of them work for Wal-Mart." The Washington Post also quoted Bruce Josten of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who said that "Maryland's approach completely misses the mark" because "roughly 25 million of the more than 45 million uninsured Americans work for companies with 10 or fewer employees." Of the remaining 20 million uninsured, a greater percentage likely work for companies with less than 10,000 employees. Establishing an arbitrary number of employees required for a company to provide better insurance benefits hardly helps the state.
The state of Maryland ought to recognize first that it depends upon Wal-Mart far more than Wal-Mart depends upon the state. Not only does Wal-Mart provide 17,000 jobs, but the company also offers a time- and money-efficient alternative to smaller stores for its customers. Despite its recent bad publicity, Wal-Mart continues to make life affordable for low-income American families and brings work to impoverished areas. Rather than being attacked by the media and taxed by the state, Wal-Mart should be lauded for its economic success and the opportunities that it provides to those who had none before. Where has our right to a free economy gone?
Elizabeth Mills' column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at emills@cavalierdaily.com.
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