Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't that argument apply to any government spending? If my enterprise relies on roads existing, and I cannot pay the full costs of maintaining the roads, say. (Ah, but roads benefit others, and we should only calculate your share! But welfare benefits others as well, it's a collective funding, so the same applies.)
Interesting what you've given us to consider, in regards to "charity benefiting its owner", to suggest these two things as comparable: (1) insufficient wages (per Adam Smith) as set by private enterprise (2) private enterprise usage of services/infrastructure as provided by government above and beyond their share of taxes Walmart was in the news recently enough ( http://www.msnbc.com/martin-bashir/mcdonalds-employee-…
Now, if they were directly contributing to an increase in public funding, then we might wish to discourage that. But if they wouldn't hire the worker, they would necessarily be paid less or not at all (else they would quit; abstracting away from inefficiencies which may make this inaccurate). So Walmart's decision to offer a wage that's the best the worker will get, yet is not livable by itself, still benefits the government, because otherwise the entire cost falls on the government. Mandating a minimum wage, and letting those workers become unemployed, just makes things worse.
Of course, this assumes that increasing the minimum wage leads to a decrease in jobs, which is itself controversial.
