This is rich. Some of the wealthiest Texans who attended the Koch
brothers’ political donor conference last month—where participants set a
goal of raising $889 million for the 2016 elections—are saying that all
the Kochs really want is to end “special interests” influence in
Washington.
“We attended that meeting — and we have an answer,” wrote Doug and Holly Deason of Dallas, in a
Dallas Morning News column
co-signed by eight other wealthy Texans. “We want Washington to do what
it hasn’t done for years: work for, not against, the American people.”
Um,
nice try. But if you are as wealthy and powerful as some of these Koch
attendees, you are not exactly representative of the American people,
whose median income was $51,939 in 2013,
according to the U.S. Census.
In the
Dallas News column,
the Koch network donors describe their shared agenda. The commentary is
a good faith effort by its authors to say what some of the wealthiest
right-wing Americans want, even as it reveals a blindness to their own
power and privilege. As commenter Texas_Vinyl astutely pointed out, some
co-signers who say they want more freedom, as well as "an impartial,
accountable, efficient and limited govermment," are among the wealthiest
Americans ever.
Such as, “Elaine Marshall, who holds 15 percent
of Koch industries and has a net worth of $8,800,000,000. This also was
co-signed by business magnate Tom Hicks who recently discounted the
selling price of his home to $60,000,000… I do not think I am out of
line, nor is anyone, to question the motive or message when so much
money and effort lays under the surface,” he wrote.
But back to
the Koch confessional. “What we want: an impartial, accountable,
efficient and limited government,” they say. “Texas shows that this is
possible — but Washington looks nothing like what we’ve described.”
Ah, Texas, the state with the
runaway death penalty. The state where nearly 1 million poor people are
deniedaccess to healthcare because Republicans won’t expand Medicaid enrollment under Obamacare. The state that is trying to
end access to abortion outside its cities. Yup, the oasis of American freedom and impartial, limited and restrained government.
But
I digress. The libertarian letter writers say they want an “impartial”
government: “Special interests have never been more powerful in
Washington. Both Democrats and Republicans hand out corporate welfare
like it’s candy, spending billions of taxpayer dollars every year to
prop up well-connected businesses and individuals. Meanwhile,
politicians make millions of dollars through questionable deals and
insider knowledge. We oppose everything that props up this self-serving
system, including subsidies, favorable regulations, pork and special
favors.”
Perhaps that was a typo; they meant to write a "partial"
government. Surely, it could never be the case that energy industry
billionaires ever got a special favor from drilling on public lands, or
market subsidies via government-built roads and railways, to say nothing
of easements or other favors for constructing pipelines across the
continent. Nope, they oppose all special treatment, and that’s why they
are so pleased about the White House not approving the Keystone XL
pipeline.
The Koch correspondents also insist that government must
be accountable, which they curiously define as being able to spend
bottomless barrels of cash to present their political message. They
don't acknowledge that most Koch network donors can hide their identity
behind the fake non-profits Koch political consultants set up, nor that
they are talking about monopolizing the microphone and drowning out
debate.
“The federal government increasingly stifles the free
speech of its opponents,” they write. “Both parties have attempted to
limit Americans’ ability to speak their minds about elections and
politicians. Last year, 54 U.S. senators voted to amend the First
Amendment to give Congress unlimited power to control political speech.
And some federal agencies — especially the Internal Revenue Service —
have targeted individuals and groups with which they disagree.”
Yes,
you remember the IRS spat. Some top agency officials had the gall to
notice that a bunch of political activists—i.e, Tea Party chapters—were
not forming political committees under state and federal campaign rules,
but were pretending to be non-profit charities to hide their donors’
identities. This is the “dark money” game.
Clearly, there's no
difference between the Tea Party and the March of Dimes. Yet,
astoundingly, these letter writers don’t even know that their side won
the fight over that ruse. As Bloomberg.com
reported
this week, the IRS said it would halt its investigations into these
front groups until after the 2016 election season.
Nice deal, eh?
You’ve
heard the rest of these right-wing complaints before. They say they
want “efficient” and “limited” government, as if America’s founders
didn’t intentionally implement a system of checks and balances. They did
so because a slower-acting government that follows the rule of law
supposedly puts the brakes on tyranny, mob rule and aristocratic
impulses.
“In short, Washington is broken,” they conclude,
pointing to the size of the federal debt and federal register, which
publishes government regulations. “And it’s harming the American people
and destroying our country’s future. Simply look around you.”
Yes, let’s do that. Let’s look around us.
“We’re
in the midst of the slowest economic recovery in over 50 years,” they
say, ignoring that the wealthiest Americans are doing amazingly well.
The financial markets are surging and there’s more access to investor
capital than in years.
“The labor participation rate is at its
lowest level since 1978, when Jimmy Carter was president,” they say, not
mentioning that American worker productivity has never been higher,
even as wages have stagnated for decades as multinational corporations
ship jobs overseas.
“Families are making less today than they did
six years ago,” they say, not mentioning that their friends in the Koch
network have fought minimum wage increases, attacked labor unions,
opposed expanding government safety nets, cut employee pensions and
still want to privatize Social Security.
“Washington is doing
better than ever, while the rest of America falls further behind,” they
conclude, hitting the cresendo of their cascading complaints. “We
believe, as do Charles and David Koch, that America deserves better.
Together, we want to help the least fortunate, defend individual freedom
and create lasting prosperity for more and more hard-working Americans.
But that can’t happen until Washington is impartial, accountable,
efficient and limited.”
This is where they really go off the
rails. Washington isn’t doing better than ever. It’s mired in ridiculous
partisan gridlock because right-wingers—funded by the Koch crew—would
rather fight and stall than seek compromise and find solutions.
Corporate America and big business are doing better than ever, as seen
in Wall Street’s record-setting highs in the various capital markets,
and high-tech’s latest global boom.
That takes us to the biggest
charade of all: the libertarian complaint that American "freedom" is
endangered. The wealthest Americans arguably have more freedom, money,
power and influence than ever. Most Americans are not living their
lives, as displayed in the glossy advertisements in the
New York Times Magazine.
What
is the freedom these libertarians seek? Is it the freedom to make big
money more quickly without having to face the consequences their actions
will have on the rest of us? Is it freedom to destroy the possibility
of debate in what remains of American democracy so they can buy endless
ads or steer the agendas of entire broadcast networks?
It
must be rough being so rich, so powerful, so expressed, so
unaccountable. Even in a government that serves American aristocracy,
our nation's wealthiest claim they can't get everything they want. But
take heart, they conclude. They will keep trying.
“That is what we want — and we will pursue it, no matter how long it takes.”
