Thom Hartmann - The Crash of 2016

After CATO, the Kochs spent millions creating the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, devoted to neoliberal economics and climate change denial.

The Wall Street Journal noted, “When it comes to business regulation in Washington, Mercatus, Latin for market, has become the most important think tank you’ve never heard of.” The article goes on to say, “Mercatus, with its free-market philosophy, has become a kind of shadow regulatory authority.”

The Mercatus Center is so effective that when oil men George W. Bush and Dick Cheney moved in to the White House in 2001, they sought suggestions for which environmental regulations they should immediately kill off. Of the twenty-three regulations to bite the dust, fourteen were suggested by the Mercatus Center, which has been given more than $14 million by the Kochs since 1998. 117

But Koch-funded Royalist spin machines aren’t exclusive to George Mason University.

At Florida State University, Charles Koch inked a multimillion-dollar deal with the economics department to advance Royalist economics. As the St. Petersburg Times reported, “A foundation bankrolled by Libertarian businessman Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University’s economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting ‘political economy and free enterprise.’” 118

The article highlights just how pervasive the Koch influence is in the Florida State University deal. “Under the agreement with the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation… faculty only retain the illusion of control. The contract specifies that an advisory committee appointed by Koch decides which candidates should be considered. The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it’s not happy with the faculty’s choice or if the hires don’t meet ‘objectives’ set by Koch during annual evaluations.” In other words, the Kochs get final say on new professors—especially ones who don’t subscribe to the Kochs’ own free-market economic philosophy. In 2009, Charles Koch nixed nearly 60 percent of the university faculty’s suggestions. 119

The Kochs have similar strings-attached deals with public universities all across the country, including West Virginia University, Troy University, Utah State University, and Clemson University. All in all, over 150 higher-education institutions receive some sort of financial contribution from the Koch brothers—often in the form of quid pro quos. Our higher-education system is being used by Economic Royalists such as the Kochs to fund economic brainwashing and a hearts-and-minds assault against the government.

And the Kochs make no secret that their money comes with strings attached. “If we’re going to give a lot of money, we’ll make darn sure they spend it in a way that goes along with our intent,” he told Doherty. “And if they make a wrong turn and start doing things we don’t agree with, we withdraw funding.”

The Kochs have been behind mind-boggling amounts of political spending.

Koch Industries itself has spent more than $50 million lobbying since 1998. But Jane Mayer, with The New Yorker , cautions, “Only the Kochs know precisely how much they have spent on politics.”

According to tax records, between 1998 and 2008, the Kochs funneled hundreds of millions of dollars through charitable organizations, with much of that money winding up in the hands of political organizations, too.

Mayer writes, “The three main Koch family foundations gave money to thirty-four political and policy organizations, three of which they founded, and several of which they direct. The Kochs and their company have given additional millions to political campaigns, advocacy groups, and lobbyists.”

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy produced a report in 2004 questioning the charitable nature of the Kochs’ donations. Their report concludes that the Kochs aren’t actually making charitable contributions; they’re making investments in ideas that will eventually lead to higher profits. According to the report, Koch foundations “give money to nonprofit organizations that do research and advocacy on issues that impact the profit margin of Koch Industries.”

The International Forum on Globalization has mapped the various organizations and individuals that make up the tentacles of the Kochtopus.

They include media personalities such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Think tanks beyond CATO include the American Enterprise Institute, which has received nearly $2 million in Koch cash, and the Heritage Foundation, which has received more than $4 million. Also benefitting from the Kochs are lobbying organizations such as the US Chamber of Commerce and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

And the Kochs provided nearly $6 million in funding for Americans for Prosperity, one of those organizations that split off from CSE’s tobacco Tea Party in the first decade of the twenty-first century to form the new Royalist-tinged Tea Party after Barack Obama was elected in 2009.

It takes a lot of money to get the entire political and economic class to buy into an ideology that has repeatedly caused massive economic crashes—especially since the last crash was still fresh in everyone’s mind.

As Charles Koch told Doherty, “We have a radical philosophy.”

The Tea Party, even if birthed by the tobacco companies, was nurtured by multimillionaire Royalists and billionaires such as Charles and David Koch. They spent millions to set up and promote Tea Party organizations, fund rallies, and charter buses to carry people from all around the country to boost participation.

And by the summer of 2009, what appeared to be a full-on grassroots movement, but in the background was a well-oiled, corporate-funded anti-Obama PR machine, had developed all around the country, complete with mostly elderly white Americans shouting down their congressmen and congresswomen, accusing them of being socialists and pushing secret agendas to raise everybody’s taxes and destroy democracy.

But the Kochs weren’t operating alone. Born out of the Ailes memo for GOP TV in the 1970s, Fox News was now the most watched cable news network in America. And they did their part to squash any sort of Progressive Revolution, and ensure that the Royalists’ counterrevolution succeeds.

Bill Sammon got the memo.

On the morning of October 27, 2009, staffers at Fox News received an urgent message from their boss, the Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon. It had to do with certain wording to be used by Fox anchors when reporting on the health reform debate—in particular, the wording to be used to describe the “Public Option.”

Ten months had passed since Barack Obama and a slew of progressive Democrats in Congress were sworn in, promising to break up the Royalists’ stronghold in our democracy and economy.

First up was the Royalist dominance in our health care system—the only one in the entire developed world that does not offer health care as a basic human right.

The Royalists knew their grip on our nation’s health care system was in danger, so they grabbed ahold of their megaphone to spew disinformation—namely, Roger Ailes.

Fear of “death panels” was one of several myths spun out of the right-wing messaging campaign funded by big for-profit health insurance corporations opposed to any sort of health reform. It was given credence by Sarah Palin in an August 2009 Facebook post in which she wrote, “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”