A Stitch in Haste

You can't claim not to have already known about the atrocious legislation in Maryland requiring every private employer — all one of them — with 10,000 or more employees to divert at 8% of total compensation to healthcare, regardless of whether the employees actually want such a forced reallocation.

Because I already blogged about it back in November. To save you a mouseclick I'm reposting it here, with an update.

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Back in April I briefly noted an obnoxious bill of attainder passed by the Maryland Legislature against Wal-Mart that would have required it, and it alone, to offer certain health care benefits to its workers. Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. vetoed the bill. It is now up for an override vote in January.

Wal-Mart is lobbying, quite intensely, to defeat the veto override, as the Washington Post documents.

I have no doubt that Wal-Mart executives are undertaking this intense lobbying campaign because they think it's worth it (i.e., the benefit of the lobbying will exceed the cost). Still, I wonder what would happen if Wal-Mart took a different approach, something closer to the nuclear option:

Dear Maryland Legislature,

If you override this veto, then we will close all our stores in your state 24 hours before the law takes effect. We will lock our doors and lay off all our employees. We will not return unless and until you revoke all legislation specifically and exclusively targeted at our company.

Love,
Wal-Mart

It's not as if Wal-Mart hasn't done it before. And it would be oh so refreshing.

Businesses need to stop apologizing for their own existence and asking permission to employ people, pay taxes and provide goods and services. The Maryland economy is not a plaything for local hack politicians to kick around like a soccer ball.

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Every advocate of central planning always — always — envisions himself as the central planner. These hack politicians are of course no different.

All these socialists are so busy patting themselves on the back over their attitude toward "big, evil" Wal-Mart that they forget the complement of that attitude, namely to "little, stupid" Wal-Mart employees. Because that's essentially what the Maryland has said: "You are too stupid not to work for Wal-Mart, so we have to babysit you and ensure that you are not taken advantage of. And if a few hundred, or thousand, of you lose your jobs today or are not hired tomorrow — well, too bad so sad."

In the end, I think I Bryan Caplan's prediction is the most likely outcome. Wal-Mart will nominally comply and offer the higher total compensation — and nothing more — into the foreseeable future. So while nominal wages across other employers increase more or less in line with inflation, Wal-Mart will hold its nominal wage flat. In other words, Wal-Mart will let the rest of the Maryland economy inflate around it until the healthcare increase has been absorbed and Wal-Mart is paying the same real total compensation as before, just with a different wage-versus-healthcare mix. Which will of course still mean fewer people hired by Wal-Mart than would have been the case without the law, and a deadweight loss for those who do work for the company.

Meanwhile, labor leeches leaders are now plotting to introduce similar legislation in as many as 31 states. (UPDATE: First up -- West Virginia.)

Always Central Planning — Always.

More thoughts at Daily Kegger, Perfect Substitute.