> You're subsidizing those wages with your tax dollars.

Under your proposal I'd be paying even more tax dollars to those rendered unemployable.

> It's not the case that they wouldn't employ people.

People who produce less value than they cost become unemployed.

So, straightforwardly, you believe Walmart operates the stores it does, employees the people it does, and has the profit it does because of taxpayer subsidies. And you're happy to take on the cost of that welfare even if you don't shop at Walmart because Walmart is so inefficient that without state subsidies it would no longer operate or employee anyone. And you must protect Walmart from its own incompetence and distort the market so Walmart doesn't have to pay its true costs and so it can survive.

You probably don't think of yourself as a socialist but socialism is what you're wholeheartedly advocating for here.

And the welfare state you're supporting the worst kind of socialism: corporate handouts for privatized profits and socialized costs.

Actually, they're called by a different name. Shareholders.