By The Numbers:
This year?s listing of the Fortune 500 largest corporations ranks Walmart at number one with $315 billion in gross revenue.

To place this in perspective, let?s keep in mind the following: If you combine the total sales of Kroger ($60.5 billion), Target ($52.6 billion), Costco Wholesale ($52.9 billion), Sears Roebuck ($49.1 billion), Safeway ($38.4 billion) and Albertson's ($40.3 billion), you still will be shy of Walmart's gross by $21 billion dollars. We also need to keep in mind that today, Walmart is eight times bigger than it was in 1992 - just 14 years ago.

By 2010, a mere four years from now, Oppenheimer fund analysts predict Walmart will surpass $500 billion. And in interviews, Walmart CEO, H. Lee Scott, has stated that he didn?t see why Walmart shouldn?t grow to be 32% of US non automotive and restaurant sales - theoretically $1 trillion in gross revenue per year.

At $1 trillion in sales, Walmart will effectively wipe out every retailer of significance in America.

Congress must take action to limit the size of predatory multi-national retailers like Walmart as these entities show little loyalty to our country:

Walmart, on a routine basis, forces American manufacturers to transfer production offshore in order to satisfy it?s demand for prices that cannot be achieved by American workers.

When locating it?s stores, Walmart routinely requests taxpayer subsidized financial assistance from cities in the form of tax abatements, subsidized improvements and outright grants in order to locate in a given locale.

State governments and ultimately state taxpayers, routinely subsidize the health care of Walmart employees because Walmart?s low wage structure places many Walmart employees at or below the poverty level and therefore eligible for government assistance. Meanwhile Walmart continues to grow and force more of the same in a downward cycle that can only be bad for this country.

On other fronts, Walmart is branching into gas retailing, with 300 stations at it?s Sam?s Club locations and over 1,500 that are currently operated by third parties at it?s Walmart locations.

And while Walmart?s attempts to purchase banks in California, Oklahoma and Canada have thus far been thwarted by regulators, the company is pushing for regulatory changes that will allow it to enter the banking sector as a major player. Its current application for a bank charter in Utah is being opposed by no less than the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Ben Bernake.

Imagine a country where one company essentially dominates your food supply, your fuel purchases and your banking. I believe Walmart has envisioned the possibilities and they are moving forward at a breath taking pace.