The Washington Post ran a story today that could be a case study in a Public Choice textbook, “Maverick Costco CEO Joins Push to Raise Minimum Wage.”

The chief executive of Costco Wholesale, the nation’s largest wholesale club, yesterday became the most prominent member of a new organization of business owners and executives pressing Congress to approve an increase in the federal minimum wage.

Wow, Costco’s Jim Sinegal must be a really moral and public-spirited CEO. Sinegal “said he signed onto the effort because he thinks a higher minimum wage would be good for the nation’s economy as well as its workers.” The CEO explained: “The more people make, the better lives they’re going to have and the better consumers they’re going to be… It’s going to provide better jobs and better wages.”

Who does Sinegal think he is fooling? His real aim is to use the government to squash any low-end competition.

Costco, of Issaquah, Wash., would suffer no direct impact from a higher minimum wage because its lowest-paid employees now make about $11 an hour, Sinegal said, adding that the average worker in the company’s 504 stores in the United States makes $17 an hour.