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Walmart is coming under fire for shortchanging its own employees.

Come Black Friday (which for many big retailers has become a two-day affair starting on Thanksgiving), Walmart will again be facing strikes and protests from workers upset with the corporation's low pay.

The best policy measures are those that solve two or more problems at once. So consider this idea: Let's tackle Washington's revenue challenges through tax hikes that mainly hit suburbanites and incentivize urban living. 

The need for more revenues is clear enough: federal taxes are near a 60-year low even as the Baby Boomers retire, China rises, infrastructure crumbles, and deficits stretch as far as the eye can see. Enough said on this point. 

Be careful what you wish for is good advice, and I'll be the first to admit that progressives may rue the day they celebrated historic changes to the Senate's filibuster rules.

Like when President Paul Ryan is packing the courts with pro-life judges in 2023. 

Walmart can easily afford to raise pay for its low-wage workers by $5.83 an hour, to an average wage of $14.89, a new report from progressive think tank Demos concludes. All the retail giant has to do is stop its massive stock buybacks—which only serve to enrich a shrinking pool of shareholders, not to improve productivity—and put that money toward its workers.

Walmart spends $7.6 billion a year buying back shares of its own stock:

Wal-Mart could afford to hike every U.S. employee’s hourly wage to at least $14.89 an hour just by not repurchasing its own stock, according to a new report from the progressive think tank Demos.

Walmart, enmeshed in a debate over low wages highlighted by a food drive for employees at a Canton store, can significantly raise the salaries of sales clerks and other workers without having to find additional money for the pay hikes, says a research brief by a think tank.

In its house editorial yesterday, USA Today retold the now-accepted story of Detroit’s bankruptcy. Railing on “reckless public pensions,” the newspaper told its readers that the Motor City is “Exhibit A for municipal irresponsibility” because it allegedly “negotiated generous pensions” that were too lavish.

A New York-based think tank released a report today questioning Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr’s assertion that the city’s long-term debt is responsible for its fiscal problems, or that pension contributions are at major hurdle for the city’s finances.

Instead, the report by Wallace Turbeville, a senior fellow at Demos, a public policy organization, said Detroit’s decline into bankruptcy was caused by a steep decline in revenues partially due both to a shrinking tax base and deep cuts in state revenue sharing with the city.