Koch Brothers Should Return $157 Million in Government Subsidies [1]
Submitted by Mary Bottari [2] on
The fossil fuel barons, Charles and David Koch, have long advocated for "economic freedom [3]" and a smaller government. They have slammed "collectivism" and market distorting subsidies.
In 2012, Charles Koch decried corporate welfare and “crony capitalism” in the pages of the Wall Street Journal [4]: “Far too many well-connected businesses are feeding at the federal trough. By addressing corporate welfare as well as other forms of welfare, we would add a whole new level of understanding to the notion of entitlement reform,” he wrote.
The Koch's “secret bank” Freedom Partners [5] has spent hundreds of millions in elections in part to tackle “‘rent-seeking,’ ‘corporate welfare,’ and other forms of cronyism.”
In 2014, the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) rolled out a report on the “Unseen Cost of Tax Cronyism” and the Kochs launched a public broadside [6] against corporate subsidies in a letter to Congress. The Kochs were so upset by programs, such as the Wind Production Tax Credit, that their chief lobbyists declared: “We oppose ALL subsidies, whether existing or proposed, including programs that benefit us.”
Now Good Jobs First [7], a nonprofit watchdog on corporate subsidies, has provided the Kochs with an excellent opportunity to put their money where their mouth is.
Good Jobs First unveiled a new, upgraded version of the their Subsidy Tracker data base [8] which aggregates subsidy recipient data from more than 700 state, local, and federal economic development programs.
Click on "Koch Industries" in their parent companies list and voila! $157 million in state and federal subsidies [9] are revealed, with an additional $6.2 million in federal loan guarantees.
Louisiana has ponied up the most $77 million in subsidies for the Koch operations, followed by $25 million in Oregon, $21 million in Oklahoma, and $15 million in Iowa.
These are all states that could use the cash.
Surely Charles and David Koch don't want to sully themselves with subsidies? With a combined net worth estimated to be $82 billion dollars, they are two of richest men in the world.
Its time to ask @Koch_Industries [10] to give it back.
Mary Bottari is a reporter for the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). She helped launch CMD's award-winning ALEC Exposed investigation and is a two-time recipient of the Sidney Prize for public interest journalism from the Sidney Hillman Foundation.