Investigating Power
The billionaire family of Education Sec. Betsy DeVos funded a political group that helped organize anti-lockdown protests, and Trump and other GOP figures stirred the pot by claiming Gov. Whitmer is a tyrant.
Five right-wing funders provided 83 percent of the traceable cash between 2014-2019 for the group’s efforts to crush public employee unions, question climate science, undermine the Affordable Care Act, and privatize schools.
The Republican Party and numerous allied groups are taking an “all-of-the-above” approach to restrict voting as much as they possibly can in this year’s November elections.
Koch-funded groups are fighting against a state constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would make Illinois the 33rd state to have a graduated income tax.
Right-wing opponents to vote-by-mail and other reforms that would expand voter participation have been busy this summer trying to whip up opposition to the states’ attempts to accommodate voters during the pandemic and undermine public confidence in mail-in ballots.
A number of Koch-linked nonprofits that advocated against federal aid to states and cities facing crushing coronavirus budget deficits received up to $5.4 million in forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans; additional anti-government spending groups took millions more.
The Milwaukee-based foundation pumped more than $42 million in 2019 into a network of right-wing groups dedicated to attacking unions, blocking climate action, creating obstacles to voting, and promoting the GOP’s political power and policy agenda.
National deep pockets backing GOP and corporate interests have pumped more than $9 million into the Buckeye Institute and the Freedom Foundation, the two groups leading attacks on public employee unions in Ohio.
The Koch-funded policy group calls for broad cuts to Medicaid, education, and water quality protection on top of Governor DeWine’s hiring freeze and budget cuts.
The well-funded machinery that sowed doubt about climate is now sowing seeds of doubt over the economic and public health response to COVID-19.