There’s nothing like a prolonged economic downturn to get you thinking about old ideas in new ways. For me, lots of that thinking has been about Walmart.

Back in 2006, when the economy was booming and Walmart was working to built a huge new store at the U.S. Highway 97 intersection with Cooley Road, The Bulletin supported that effort, and while I agreed with our decision, I’ll admit I had reservations about the plan.

I’d heard all the usual allegations about the nation’s biggest retailer. It paid poorly. It denied employees access to health insurance. It fought those who would unionize its workforce tooth and nail. It used its considerable purchasing power to push its suppliers into decisions they did not want to make. Perhaps most important, it was the kiss of death for many small, locally owned businesses.

Maybe, just maybe, Bend would be better off without such an economic Goliath in our midst.

All that sounds incredibly snotty to me today. It smacks of the very worst kind of elitism, the kind I’m embarrassed to admit I ever indulged in, even quietly.

It says, in effect, those whose budgets are stretched the thinnest in our region must be forced to pay more than they might for the necessities of life so the rest of us can feel good about ourselves as we plunk down $7 a pound for ground beef.

It may well be that Walmart is not the most lucrative place to work. Retail stores, in general, tend to come in at the low end of the pay scale, and Walmart is no exception. Yet ask employees, as I have in the last couple of years, and they say it’s a good place to work. Moreover, look at websites like glassdoor.com and payscale.com, and it’s clear that while Walmart doesn’t pay terribly well, it’s competitive with other big-box stores like Target.

As for killing off small retail, the admittedly conservative Cato Institute makes a couple of valid points, it seems to me. Among them:

Often the research about the impact of Walmart on other retailers includes such giants as, again, Target, hardly a mom-and-pop outfit. And, while some small retailers do go under after Walmart arrives on the scene, other small retailers are likely to set up shop in the following months.

In the end, though, it comes down to price. Walmart often sells less expensively goods that are available for more elsewhere. I am not sure, for example, why I should have to pay $8 for a bottle of olives at either of Bend’s largest grocers when I can get the same bottle for $6 at Walmart. Moreover, the company that produces the olives clearly believes it will make money on those $6 olives or it wouldn’t sell them to Walmart in the first place.

Central Oregon, Bend included, has always been a blue-collar region, and Walmart is a blue-collar store. Fine. It knows its niche and fills it well.

Far less fine is the notion that those who need Walmart because money is tight should be denied it because their neighbors don’t want “that kind of store” in the community.

I think it’s wonderful that Bend is home to two small butcher shops featuring locally raised meat. Those who can, should support them. At the same time, not everyone can pay $40 a pound for steak or an equally steep price for a pork chop, and if Walmart offers steak and chops at prices they can afford, that’s good.

We do our neighbors no favor when we say they must pay more because we don’t like the company that offers things for less. It’s an incredibly arrogant attitude, it seems to me, and I’m sorry I ever indulged in it.