The Koch Brothers talk a good game against “special-interest handouts” and “corporate welfare”—and support eliminating popular tax deductions that benefit the middle class—but they are happy to squeeze out every tax break they can get for their corporate operations.
When their Koch Industries Georgia-Pacific unit decided to build a new lumber plant in Talladega, Alabama, the company asked for and received a generous handout from taxpayers.
On October 9, the Talladega City Council approved a $5.2 million tax abatement for the facility, which is slated to open in 2018.
Talladega is one of the poorest cities in Alabama. Its median family income of $30,307 is roughly half of the national average, and one in four of its residents live below the federal poverty line.
According to the new Forbes 400 list, the Koch Brothers each have a net worth of more than $48 billion, and Koch Industries has an annual revenue of more than $100 billion.
Nonetheless, it is not unusual for Koch Industries to seek taxpayer assistance from state and local governments. The Good Jobs First Subsidy Tracker documents more than $363 million in such aid to the company and its subsidiaries from jurisdictions in 27 states.
So much for the free market.
J Lucien
As Chomsky noted, state capitalism (like we have in the US) is the privatization of profit and the socialization of risk (all risks and “externalities” like pollution, poor public health etc. is offset to us, the public). It’s a repulsive system – we need to build community and worker power through the means we have available, envisioning a liberated world, free from hierarchy & domination, autonomy from the predatory political-economy of capitalism.
Daniel
They’re not the only ones getting away with this. Many communities, municipalities, grant tax breaks to corporations to bring them into the community. Corporations exploit that to the maximum. The poorer th community, the more leverage corporate has. This is class war in a direct way. The pretense is that the lumber business will bring jobs. It does, but wages will be in line with local standards, very low.
Marky Spitz Truth
This country was created by revolt against the rich, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and the others simply jumped into a revolution that was already in progress by the working class. Pockets of working class were already inflicting casualties upon the British Monarchy connected landlords and business interests that were exploiting them…and “Tar & Feather them” was the least of these greedy special interest’s problems. The people were burning them out and KILLING THEM!
KILL THE RICH! Was the battle cry as this is the ONLY action these types understand.
This latest tax plan again proves the rich are extremely greedy and can never have enough money, and they never give back…sociopaths all of them!
One thing we can do is NEVER vote a rich person into office and support independent candidates through small donations from all of us, like Sanders did.
Charlie G
we need to get our country back from these people. Money is all they know and they have their guy in the white house.we need to rally behind good candidates and we need to protest and shut this government down now.
Marky Spitz Truth
In a perfect world we would all get together and “Stiff the Banks”. Stop paying our mortgages and car loans, everybody all at once…they’d get the idea real quick, knowing they could never evict and repossess from 100 million or better.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable” …RFK
Charles Gee
Try to find dinner napkins and bottled water that are not a Koch Industries product. Not easy!
S K Willis
Here are two suggestions: 1) Buy some fabric and make a bunch of washable napkins. 2) Stop buying all bottled water…The major bottlers are depleting groundwater in many communities around the country and selling it back to them (and us) for 10 times the cost of their tap water.
Marsha McCroden
Maybe use a Brita water filter and filler. That way you could use tap water and filter out the impurities. Home based bottled water. Myself, I use one named Clean Filtration.
Evelyn Hamilton
Try the Buycott app to scan products on your phone while at the store. Cumbersome at first, but empowering in the end.
Patricia Artz
– and that’s how the rich get richer. – so they can buy political power in government and education.
James Stone
Exactly…
Jessie J Formanek
How can this happen? It is unbelievable. How can the Koch brothers get away with this?
Manley Glaubitz
Money used to influence politicians, fund university classes to teach their beliefs, create think tanks like Heritage Foundation, and to pay lobeyists. Read “Dark Money”. It lays it out in detail.
George Fleming
The only way is to cut them off at the roots. That would be going after the lawyers, who make it all possible.
Lawyers are members of the judiciary branch of government. Yet they commonly hold office simultaneously in another branch. This is a violation of the fundamental principle of our constitutions, the separation of powers.
That’s right. Lawyers swear to uphold the constitution, but they are the greatest violators of it.
Worse, we must go to the lawyers to prosecute the lawyers. At least that is what they want us to believe. But we have the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution. If enough of us realize this, we can use it to bring the lawyers under the control of the law. Not saying it would be easy. Anyone have a better idea?
James Stone
“The only way is to cut them off at the roots.”
A Georgia-Pacific Koch brothers pun if I ever heard one…
Back in the winter of 1971 I was hired by GP to plant trees up in Oregon. I decided it was too cold up there and went back to southern CA. Now that their empires have contributed so much to global warming, the climate up there is becoming more temperate and more appealing to me than down here in a very, very hot northern FL.
David Kirsh
I try to avoid buying toilet paper manufactured by Koch Bros’ subsidiaries. So far, Cottonelle is the only major brand that ISNT Koch toilet paper. Check it out!
Evelyn Hamilton
Thanks for this information. Toilet paper is one item on which I, negligently, haven’t focused my phone Buycott app. I recommend the Buycott app as a way to vote with your (withheld) money if you are, like most of us, unable to buy a politician .
LinearBob
I think you could buy toilet paper from Costco under their house brand, Kirkland. I think that is not a Koch product in disguise.
Edward Fields
Read Democracy in Chains to appreciate what hypocrits the Koch brothers really are.
Deb Mathiowetz
These people are disgusting. I find it even worse that cities and states keep handing out these rewards. If they stood together nod said “NO MORE” this practice would go away. Wishful thinking, I know.
Darold Smith
We are in a race to the bottom to see which governing entities can outbid each other for the greatest tax abatement to get a business to either relocate or to prevent a business from leaving for a larger give away from another location. In the end, the taxpayers lose and the business gets tax-free profit. With a 10% profit margin, every tax gift dollar is worth ten dollars of revenue.
American
If they didn’t fill their pocket in Government they would have to pay for it them self. That the way the wealthy People work. That the way those in Government work they want to used tax Payer money to get what they want and give to the Wealthy, The money they give to the Wealthy People they could give ever American Person one billion dollars and make American Great Again. Why should the Wealthy People spend their money when they can spend Tax Payer money. That just make them more Wealthy.
Arthur Friedman
I find it interesting that so many “good Christian” businessmen (perhaps that is an oxymoron) need to be nearing their deathbed BEFORE they discover religion. Individuals such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller clearly come to mind. It was only when they reached the ends of their lives, and finally realized that they can’t take their ill-gotten wealth with them into the grave, that they became philanthropists and used at least part of those gains to do good deeds. Will these Koch brothers ever learn? Will the “Christian” preachers who hypocritically praise them ever learn? What will it take?
James Stone
” “good Christian” businessmen ” ?
Yes, I’d say that is quite oxymoronic in our “exceptional” western capitalist society…
Hekate
You got that right!
Vicki Scott
Koch Bros? Ugh and ugh