Asa Hutchinson: “In my office in the Dirksen Building I have a hanging portrait of the 5-&-10-cent store where Sam Walton started the…”

“In my office in the Dirksen Building I have a hanging portrait of the 5-&-10-cent store where Sam Walton started the Wal-Mart stores. There is nothing in this amendment that is antientrepreneur. The fact is that Wal-Mart, with their huge advertising budget, as it was alluded to, started as a little 5-&-10- cent store, as a mom-and-pop store in Arkansas. That is an American success story which ought to be applauded, not disparaged. Every American ought to have that opportunity, to have that dream. We ought not with legislation undercut that little Main Street store that cannot be replicated, cannot be replaced. No matter how great the Internet is, no matter how great catalogs are, they cannot replace that store on Main Street giving to the little league and supporting the local efforts and local initiatives. It has been implied that somehow this amendment, this second-degree amendment would mandate that they focus the study, the commission focus their study on interstate sales. Nothing could be further from the truth.”