A Glimpse of Sanity

Wal-Mart seems to be under a constant barrage of legislation that is intended to punish Wal-Mart (for selling stuff at Everyday Low Prices I guess). Many of the laws aimed at Wal-Mart don’t discriminate about who they harm – well, as long as they are large and successful anyway. Some are pretty creative in targeting Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart alone.

With as exasperated as I get about government it is refreshing to learn that they aren’t all crazy.

A federal judge on Wednesday overturned a Maryland law that would have required Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to spend more on employee health care, arguing the retail giant "faces threatened injury" from the law's spending requirement.

The state law would have required large employers to spend at least 8 percent of payroll on health care or pay the difference in taxes. Only Wal-Mart would have been affected by the law.

Forget for a moment the merits (or lack thereof) of what Maryland was attempting to do. It is ridiculous for any legislature at any level of government to craft a law so narrowly as to only effect a single business. And I don’t mean just to their detriment. If a policy is good it should affect everyone equally (isn’t that what the Equal Protection clause was supposed to accomplish?) whether its loopholes to avoid restrictive regulation or, as in this case, regulation that can only be applied to a single party.

I’m glad that someone has finally said enough is enough.