WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price -- teaser trailer
This award-winning documentary takes you behind the ”happy face” of Wal-Mart and into the real lives of employees and their families, business owners, product manufacturers and the larger community – all impacted by Wal-Mart. This film is an extraordinary journey that will challenge the way you think, feel... and shop.
There will be a free screening of this film on Thursday April 3rd at 7:00 PM at Poway Royal Mobile Home Park
Main Clubhouse at 13300 Alpine Road, Poway.
Click here for a map of this location.
The event will be hosted by South Poway Residents Association.
For more information click here.
The first Wal-Mart in San Diego County opened its doors on Aug 4, 1992 in Poway. Yep, the mega-retailer's first local coup was in our bucolic community. To be sure, the Poway city council insisted that Wal-Mart blend in with our "city in the country" atmosphere. Atmosphere apparently was only skin deep, or in this case red-tile roof deep, plus some landscaping around the perimeter of the gigantic parking lot.
Poway was the first to open a Wal-Mart in San Diego County, but it wouldn't be the only one for long. Santee and Oceanside were under construction in 1992 and Wal-Mart had plans to open hundreds of stores in San Diego County and California.
Santee and Poway offered Wal-Mart millions of dollars in incentives to build in their communities. Getting financial incentives is typical for Wal-Mart. A 2004 report funded in large part by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, "Shopping for Subsidies: How Wal-Mart Uses Taxpayer Money to Finance its Never Ending Growth" , details many of the ways Wal-Mart and the developers who build Wal-Marts get taxpayer money.
The most common types are :
1) free or reduced price land
2) infrastructure assistance
3) tax increment financing
4) property tax breaks
5) state corporate income tax credits
6) sales tax rebates
7) enterprise zone status
8) job training and other recruitment funds
9) tax-exempt bond financing and
10) general grants.
The most common types are :
1) free or reduced price land
2) infrastructure assistance
3) tax increment financing
4) property tax breaks
5) state corporate income tax credits
6) sales tax rebates
7) enterprise zone status
8) job training and other recruitment funds
9) tax-exempt bond financing and
10) general grants.
It works kind of like this. Local officials want the sales tax that a Wal-Mart can bring to their community. So they "invest" other taxpayer subsidies to get the Wal-Mart built. And they usually brag about what a "win" it is. However, from the taxpayer's standpoint it is a losing proposition. Imagine all of the taxes (including sales taxes) paid by the taxpayers in every city are in one big pot. The total amount of sales taxes won't change much if you buy your stuff at Wal-Mart or if you buy your stuff from Ma and Pa Kettle or from a department store. If you take out hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money in order to give incentives to Wal-Mart and other big box stores, then the total amount of money left in the taxpayer pot begins to dwindle.
So, while Poway "wins" on Wal-Mart, they lose when some other town gets a competing retail store. And in the end, we are all losers. There is less money in the pot for funding municipal services. And now, public officials have created an "atmosphere" where big box stores can play off one town against the next for the highest taxpayer funded subsidy.
Why does Wal-Mart need so much taxpayer money? Several of the richest people in the world are heirs to Sam Walton's fortune. Well, to be honest, all of the taxpayer incentives probably don't go to the Waltons or stock holders. Some of it is funneled back to elected officials as campaign donations. In the early 90s Frank Gatlin, of Gatlin Development Company, (which built Wal-Mart shopping centers) set about to cozy up to San Diego city officials. Gatlin would later agree to a CA FPPC stipulation of 107 counts of money laundering and illegal contributions. Gatlin gave illegal "batched campaign contributions" to many officials, especially to mayoral candidate Ron Roberts. Roberts repeatedly phoned Gatlin with requests for another $5000. Gatlin got donations for Roberts (and others) from people in his company and he illegally reimbursed those people later. When Gatlin ran out of people in his own company, he tapped his lawyer's firm. Gatlin would then deliver the batched contributions to Roberts when they met for lunch and Roberts would slip them inside his coat jacket. Of course, Roberts said he didn't know there were any illegal donations in that bulge, and, of course, they never discussed Wal-Mart at these luncheons. Oh no. They just talked about the weather. Um-hunh.
Gatlin would later pay $192,000, one of the largest fines in the FPPC's history. Sheesh, it is hard to imagine just how much $192,000 stings when you are getting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies.
In my next post on Wal-Mart, I will discuss the impacts of Wal-Mart on the Poway community, particularly how it affects other businesses, traffic, and our community character. Please feel free to chime in with your own comments.
