“Imagine a private group that pays billions in taxes, creates millions of jobs and sells things at ultra-low prices. Too good to be true? It’s called Wal-Mart—and Democrats, for some reason, want to kill it off... This is all part of a recent trend among Democratic politicians using Wal-Mart as a foil to ingratiate themselves with middle-class voters. This may be good politics. We don’t know. But those who participate in such Wal-Mart-bashing reveal themselves to be economic illiterates of the most dangerous sort... A study by economic consultant Global Insight found that, from 1985 to 2004, Wal-Mart slashed food-at-home prices by 9.1%, goods prices by 4.2% and overall consumer prices by 3.1%. If those cuts don’t sound huge, consider that, all told, they saved mostly poor and middle-class consumers $263 billion—or $895 per person and $2,329 per household. By now, of course, it’s become obvious that Democrats aren’t so much anti-Wal-Mart as they are pro-organized labor... Yet despite unions’ widely disseminated claims, the wages that Wal-Mart pays its employees are competitive. In 2004, Global Insight found that the average wage nationwide for jobs equivalent to Wal-Mart’s was $8.46 an hour. Wal-Mart paid $9.17. Put bluntly, the war against Wal-Mart Stores is a war against the poor, and it’s shocking to watch a major political party carry it out... A Zogby Poll...found that 85% of frequent Wal-Mart shoppers pulled the lever for President Bush in 2004, and that 88% of people who never shop there voted for John Kerry. Maybe the split in this country isn’t so much red state versus blue, but Wal-Mart vs. non-Wal-Mart. And since 20% of Americans are Wal-Mart shoppers, Democrats might think twice before alienating them any more than they have so far.” —Investor’s Business Daily