Real Koch Facts

AFP Heralds Defeat of Michigan Road Funding Proposal

June 16, 2014

Last week, after a tumultuous legislative session, the Michigan Senate could not agree on a proposal that would shift the state’s fuel tax in order to fund sorely needed repairs to the state’s roads and bridges.

According to a report from Michigan Live, Democrats and Republicans alike were frustrated with the Senate’s failure to reach compromise. Yet one group was quick to herald the bill’s defeat: Americans for Prosperity of Michigan, the political arm of the billionaire Koch brothers in the state. AFP’s state director decried the proposal’s impact on “Michigan families,” who in his estimation, would apparently prefer to continue having to drive on roads with potholes and bridges in disrepair.

A component of the proposal was an increase in the tax on diesel fuel – currently 15 cents a gallon – to match that on gasoline, 19 cents. Koch Industries’ subsidiaries own and operate over a half dozen facilities […]

Breaking: AFP and the Kochs Still Hate Wind Energy

Photo Credit: Will Lee

The Koch Brothers made their fortune in the fossil fuel industry, and so their political arm, Americans for Prosperity, dutifully advocates against all manner of proposals and measures that support development of renewable energy sources. Last week, AFP was at it again, releasing a letter railing against the now-expired wind production tax credit.

In the letter, AFP cites many of its usual arguments against the wind tax credits, calling the incentives “government favoritism in the energy marketplace.” But this time, AFP is joined in their complaint by 116 other groups that also signed onto the letter. AFP trumpets that the groups supporting the letter are “diverse in size and scope,” and while that may be true, several of the organizations listed also receive substantial backing from the Koch brothers.

Last week’s AFP letter is just another self-serving argument against green energy by the fossil fuel-loving Koch brothers, this time with the added benefit of […]

This Week in Real Koch Facts

June 13, 2014

It’s another lovely week in Kochland, as the Koch brothers announced their plan to drop another $30 million into buying midterm elections to push their self-serving agenda and a Koch Industries subsidiary twice released toxic chemicals into the Florida air. Meanwhile, in Michigan Terri Lynn Land gushed over the Kochs and their unlimited campaign spending, Thom Tillis took Koch marching orders, and we explored AFP’s inability to tell the truth and their interesting definition of fairness (spoiler: they want working families to pay more taxes). We also took a stroll down memory lane to the 1970s, when Charles Koch initiated his master plan to undermine and undercut government.

Check it out after the jump.

Kochs To Throw Another $30 Million Behind Their Self-Serving Agenda

Photo Credit: Ervins Strauhmanis

The Kochs’ self-interested spending spree continues, with no end in sight. Politico reported this morning that the Kochs’ political umbrella group Freedom Partners is reserving $30 MILLION worth of airtime for this fall in seven states with Senate races. This is of course on top of the $125 million Americans for Prosperity has already announced it plans to spend this cycle, all to buy elections for the Kochs’ extreme conservative candidates of choice who they can trust to drive their self-serving agenda.

The worst part is not the spending, it’s that the Kochs are using their massive wealth to inundate voters around the country with false, misleading, and bogus information. Thus far, of the twelve fact-checks PolitiFact has done on Americans for Prosperity, not a single one has been rated even “mostly true.” They’ve tried to play off out-of-state actors as concerned constituents. They told the sad story of a sick woman forced to buy a new unaffordable health care plan…only to have it revealed that the woman would actually save over $1000. Ad after ad has been proven false or misleading. They’ll say anything to advance the Koch agenda–to abolish the minimum wage, slash medicare, dismantle social security, strip environmental protections, and generally roll back and undermine government, all to keep growing their massive oil profits.

So it’s important for voters to keep this in mind. Over the next five months, when your TV is overtaken by scary political ads telling you that Candidate X will destroy your life as you know it, there’s a good chance it’s paid for by the Koch brothers in an effort to drive their self-serving agenda. And if it is, you should add a mental disclaimer: This advertisement is aimed at further enriching the billionaire Koch brothers and is unlikely to be based on reality.

Background research after the jump.

Koch Subsidiary’s Plant Releases Toxic Chemicals… Twice

Not once, but twice over the past month, employees at the Buckeye Mill in Perry, Florida, have been subjected to releases of toxic chlorine dioxide into the air. According to WCTV, on both May 22 and May 28, the harmful chemical was released from the plant, which is owned by Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia Pacific.

Exposure to chlorine dioxide, primarily used to bleach wood pulp, is limited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which describes the chemical as a “severe respiratory and eye irritant.” Reportedly, workers were evacuated from the Buckeye plant after the release of what witnesses described as a big green cloud, and while there were no injuries reported, these incidents highlight the risk inherent in the operation of these and other plants that use the toxic chemical.

Groups like U.S. PIRG have highlighted that safer alternatives exist to using chlorine dioxide to bleach paper, yet, according to PIRG, multiple […]

Thom Tillis Gives the Koch Brothers Two Thumbs Up

June 12, 2014

Per Ethel Merman, “there’s no business like show business,” but in North Carolina it’s more like “there’s big business in show business.” An NC State study has found that the film industry has benefited the state’s economy to the tune of 4,200 jobs.

It follows that State House Speaker Thom Tillis, himself a “lifelong businessman,” said in September of last year that the “film industry is critical” to Wilmington and Charlotte and that he would support extension of the tax credit program in this year’s short legislative session.

Fast forward to yesterday, when the film tax extension failed to even make it out of committee during the Tillis-run legislative session and is nowhere to be found in the Speaker’s budget.

What prompted Tillis’ change of heart, and this plot twist? Enter the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, which launched an advertising campaign railing against the film tax credit extension. Turns out Speaker Tillis would rather see […]

The Kochs: Fighting To Undermine Government Since 1978

“The Kochs, with billions in holdings in energy, transportation and manufacturing, have a significant interest in seeing that future government regulation is limited.”

That’s from a New York Times article in March titled “Koch Group, Spending Freely, Hones Attack on Government.” The point of the article was that the Kochs and their political groups aren’t just spending money to attack one policy, or to attack one candidate. They want to fundamentally undermine government because they have a significant financial self-interest in doing so.

It’s nothing new. Back in 1978, Charles Koch wrote an anti-government manifesto. And they’ve been fighting the same battle ever since.

The Kochs don’t want to make government better. They want to make government disappear. And per usual, it’s all about the Benjamins.

Terri Lynn Land Gushes Over Unlimited Dark Money

Photo Credit: Barta IV

Terri Lynn Land has been the beneficiary of quite a bit of support from the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity. $3.6 million of support, that is, in the form of baseless and debunked attack ads against her opponent.

Maybe that’s why she was recently so quick to praise unlimited dark money in politics as “the American Way,” calling it “what’s great about our country.” Really? We here at Real Koch Facts think Americans may disagree that the prospect of an election being upended by billionaires flooding the airwaves with false advertisements attacking a candidate does not rise to the level of baseball and apple pie.

But AFP’s Koch-funded agenda in Michigan goes beyond attempts to buy a Senate seat. AFP recently wasted $27,000 (more than $4 per vote) on an unsuccessful attempt to kill an effort to fund road repairs in Grand Rapids. They unsuccessfully lobbied against the […]

AFP Opposes Proposal for Wealthy to Pay Their Fair Share

Photo Credit: 401kcalculator.org

From ensuring tax breaks for Big Oil, to eliminating campaign finance laws or opposing minimum wage increases, Americans for Prosperity never hesitates to advocate for policies that line the pockets of the Koch brothers and AFP’s other ultra-wealthy backers. It follows that AFP reflexively opposes any proposals that dare to suggest that the super-rich pay their fair share of taxes. AFP has come out in support for lower taxes for the wealthy over a dozen times.

The latest addition to AFP’s oeuvre of legislative alerts rails against the “Fair Share Tax,” natch. (If “Fair Share Tax” doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps its alias does: the Buffett Rule, so named after the billionaire investor Warren Buffett who suggested that his marginal tax rate should be raised to at least match that paid by his staff, including his secretary).

AFP urges legislators to reject the fair share tax provision currently before […]

AFP Has A Lying Problem

June 9, 2014

Last week, Brad Woodhouse penned an op-ed for CNN as part of our ongoing efforts to expose the truth about the self-serving agenda of the Koch Brothers and their political groups, like Americans for Prosperity. Apparently AFP didn’t like that, because today, CNN published a rebuttal from their president, Tim Phillips. Phillips, claims that really AFP’s work is all about fighting for policies “that would give every American the best shot at a better life.” It remains unclear how shifting a greater tax burden onto working families, slashing Medicare and Social Security, and abolishing the minimum wage would help “give every American the best shot at a better life.” But there is even more concrete dishonesty in Phillips’ op-ed:

Look no further than Obamacare for proof. It has been nothing but a burden on hard-working American families. The country deserves to hear their stories. For months, we’ve worked with middle-class families […]

Breaking: AFP and the Kochs *Still* Hate Wind Energy