Here comes spendageddon!
To influence the 2016 elections, oil barons Charles and David Koch have pledged that their political network will spend $889 million, media reports say. Basically — wrap your head around this if you can — the ultra-conservative Koch brothers want to keep their business and personal taxes as low as possible and keep regulations on the energy industry as low as possible.
And if they get their way, that $889 million in money donated by the Kochs and others to the groups they founded, will turn out to be just a drop in the bucket, a small investment for which they stand to gain much more in tax breaks and free pollution.
Mind you, in 2012, the Koch brothers helped create and fund a network of dark-money groups that raised more than $400 million for GOP candidates — and President Barack Obama still won re-election, and Democrats gained seats in the House and Senate. But in the 2014 midterms, the Koch brothers’ batting average improved: The Koch-backed Freedom Partners Action Fund had an 88% success rate, for example.
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Or, finally, instead of hiding in the shadows of dark-money organizations gambling $889 million to try and buy our elections, the Koch brothers could be more direct. They and their fellow conservative donors could give $1,201 each to 740,043 voters in Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wisconsin — swing states that Obama won in 2012, but only by a 740,043 total margin. Yes, that would be buying votes. But isn’t that what they are already trying to do?
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