The Savage Republican

All during the Alito hearings, we kept hearing (and are still hearing today in the open Senate remarks), how Judge Alito is not acceptable as a Supreme Court Justice because he consistently rules “against the little guy” or that he only rules “for the administration”. However, 2 stories today seem to show that these accusations are being thrown at the “wrong side”.

First story is from my hometown of Chicago. The Democratic Mayor and City Council decided that it was best for the “little guy” to ban Wal-Mart from building in the economically struggling Chatham neighborhood. Alderman Howard Brookins was pushing to get the project built in his neighborhood, where the estimated $3m in annual sales taxes (at this one store) could do mountains of good for his ward.

“"I always tell people I'm not for Wal-Mart, but I am for that project coming into the city and to my ward. We can't beat them,"

Eighteen months ago, Ald. Brookins negotiated with Wal-Mart to get them to build on the abandoned Ryerson Steel Plant. However, because the City turned down Wal-Mart’s application, they built in Evergreen Park, one block outside of the city of Chicago. Now Evergreen Park is getting the tax dollars, the 325 jobs (a vast majority of the 25,000 job applicants had City of Chicago addresses) and $35,000 in corporate donations to the local hospital, library and other village entities.

The second was this WSJ story which recounts Wal-Mart’s reaction to the new Maryland law that requires all businesses that employ over 10,000 people to spend 8% of their total profits on health care.

“Unfortunately, in Somerset, the new law looks more like a body blow than a "swipe." The rural county is Maryland's poorest, with per capita personal income 46% below the state average and a poverty rate 130% above it. Somerset's enduring problem is weak labor demand that greatly limits its 25,250 residents' economic opportunities.”

Somerset County Maryland was going to get 800 jobs from a planned Wal-Mart distribution center. Since the “Fair Share Health Care Act” went into effect, Wal-Mary has pulled back from the proposal to build that distribution center. The possible effects of the distribution center on the local Somerset economy are staggering:

“• The center's 800 employees would have created an additional 282 jobs among "upstream" suppliers and "downstream" retailers and service establishments; all told, the center would have boosted county employment by 14% and private-sector employment by 20%.
• Total annual employee compensation in Somerset would have risen by $46.5 million, or 19%.
• Annual output (or "gross county product") would have risen by $128.3 million, or 19%.
• State and local tax receipts would have increased by $19.2 million annually; this would include $8.5 million in property taxes, $5.6 million in sales taxes, and $1.4 million in personal income taxes.”

So you tell me…..just who is “for the little guy”? Judging by the stories above, it is certainly not the big city Democrats. The only ones these folks are looking out for are themselves and their big union friends.