Remember last week we were all supposed to be so impressed and worshipping at the feet of the compassionate legislators who gulped hard and agreed to give one new business a super-special lower tax rate just to bring in 50 new jobs?

I know, I know — it seems so long ago now that the same guys have been talking about expanding the franchise fee and raising taxes. (Does that mean we now get to condemn them and curse the ground they walk on for weaseling out and killing off thousands upon thousands of new and existing jobs?)

I mention that because in a little-remarked news item, it has been announced that a new Wal-Mart opening in Garner is looking to fill 350 positions. And they’ve done it without some camera-chasing legislator giving them “tax discounts” so he can be present at the ribbon-cutting ceremony and pretend to be a Solomon of an economic dictator or something. In fact, they’ve done it in the face of a relentless, sometimes demonstrably silly, demonization campaign against the retailer (so relentless, in fact, that when a local columnist stumbles across the some of the community good the company regularly does, it is news to him).

A Wal-Mart opening in your community is good for employment, good for consumers, good for the poor, good for the community. Only a “progressive” who professes to care about the poor but has a revealed preference for stifling any help for the poor that comes from outside of government (that is, from where most of the help, the most effective help, comes from) would disagree. (Don’t tell anyone, but it’s even good for the vain progressive who might want to send his unpaid laborer over there in secret to pick him up a brand-new game system.)