Eight-hundred and eighty-nine million dollars. The Koch brothers’ budget for the 2016 elections is $889 million.

That’s what it costs to buy a political party these days, apparently. But then again, the Koch brothers’ net worth fluctuated more than that much yesterday, so what’s it to them?

In early 2014, American Bridge launched RealKochFacts.com, a first of its kind research and rapid response website to shine light on the unsavory activities of the Koch brothers, their decades-long self-interested agenda, their growing power within the Republican Party, and the consequences of their platform for working families. At the time, some asked why we were focusing this much time and effort on two private citizens. It should be clear now, we never had a choice — the Koch network has overtaken GOP.

Consider the realities of the current situation. The Koch brothers have committed to spending almost $250 million more in 2016 than the RNC, NRSC and NRCC combined to spend in 2012. The first GOP presidential debate in earnest was sponsored by the Kochs’ Freedom Partners and held in a Palm Springs hotel — that happened the same month Reince Priebus indicated that there would be stiff sanctions against any candidates who participated in debates not commissioned by the RNC. And this all comes on the heels of a year in which the Koch network spent hundreds of millions to elect hand-picked candidates to Congress, and charted the course of the party with now-Majority Leader McConnell and other GOP big wigs at a secretive billionaires’ summit.

The issue with two rich men picking winners and losers for an entire political party goes far beyond the mockery they are making of democracy. The real shame — even more damning than the millions of voices their money is drowning out — is that the self-interested policies they are pushing are utterly destructive:

In Kansas, Gov. Sam Brownback hired an AFP consultant as his budget director, they pushed through Utopian Koch tax cuts for the wealthy, and the state is now in economic ruin.

In North Carolina, Gov. Pat McCrory appointed Koch-crony Art Pope as his budget director and they jammed through devastating education cuts.

In Iowa, Ohio and more, the Kochs have fought to roll back renewable fuel standards, and they’ve lobbied heavily to kill wind energy tax credits, all to protect the monumental profits they turn from their Big Oil operation.

Koch smear campaigns have been instrumental in everything from blocking Medicaid expansion to killing funding for the Columbus Zoo. And they’re already threatening GOP candidates by making it clear that if they are willing to work to address climate change, “They would be at a severe disadvantage in the Republican nomination process.”

And the newly-minted Republican Congress is already demonstrating their adherence to the Koch principles, roundly attacking calls for a minimum wage increase even while feigning concern over the wage gap.

The GOP is now the Gazillionaire-Owned Party. The Koch brothers bought it. And the new management cares even less about you than the old one did.