In a recent USA Today article, Charles Koch is doing a PR stunt to convince us he is just a good guy. He wants us to believe that he and his brother David are only trying to control our government for the benefit of us all. He calls it a quest to "increase well-being in society." I really do not know how helping Republicans take over the White House, the U.S. Congress and state houses across the country, is going to increase the well-being of society but he at least wants to convince the more gullible of the electorate, that that is their goal.
The facts of the matter are different of course. The well-being of society depends greatly on our ability to drink clean water and breath clean air but these are things Charles and David Koch want us to forget about, because worrying about those kinds of things cost money to guys like him whose company wants to pollute freely and without that pesky EPA telling them what to do.
The well-being of society has to do with average workers making a decent living, which is something else the Koch brothers have a problem with because they don’t like the idea of raising the minimum wage. Obviously, it is okay that many Americans work hard only to find themselves struggling just to pay their bills, let alone send their kids to college or save for retirement. God forbid there is a serious family medical crisis, which is another thing the Koch brothers do not like: Obamacare.
If hard-working workers cannot afford health care, the Koch brothers don’t think we should worry about it too much. Obviously, the well-being of society does not include the health care of low-paid workers. The Koch brothers, just like the Republicans they support with their millions of dollars of campaign donations, do not have a real plan to provide health care for everyone, and they don’t want the health care plan we already have either.
Then there is retirement, which is sometimes the only thing poor workers have to look forward to, that is if they can get there before they die. The Koch brothers don’t think poor elderly people deserve decent health care either, as they’re looking to slash Medicare. In fact, they probably think poor workers should just continue to work until they just fall over dead because along with Medicare, they want to dismantle Social Security. Perhaps they feel all the money that has been deducted from average workers’ payroll all their lives to pay for Medicare and Social Security, should just go into another huge tax windfall for super wealthy guys like them.
Then there is Wall Street; the Koch brothers think the banking institutions that hold a great deal of our money should be able to play with that money, anyway they want. They have consistently supported legislation to let banks gamble with our money some more, like they did before 2008 before the Great Recession. So what if we again have to bail them out, it is just another good way to transfer some more wealth upwards, which in turn helps Koch Industries.
Many of us surely can remember how desperate Wall Street was back in 2008, letting us know that if the federal government did not hand them a huge bailout package, the whole nation was going to go under. So we did, and in return, Wall Street was back to paying themselves huge bonus checks in no time, long before many average Americans were even back to work. And, in doing so, Wall Street has made a bundle with the stock market making record profits, all the while wages stagnate for everyone else. CEOs are making 300 times what average workers make and as always, the wealthy keep getting richer.
The only people the Koch brothers are going to convince that they’re just good guys concerned for all our well-being, is the ignorant, uninformed, Fox news lovers, who belong to the Republican Party.
The Koch brothers intend on picking our president for us in 2016, as they’re spending a huge wad of cash on it, and they want us to believe the guy who they pick will take us all down that street of gold. But, believe me, the only people going to continue down that street of gold will be the Koch brothers and the rest of their ilk. The rest of us will continue just trying to see over the pile of bills piling up and the thick layer of smog that polluting companies like Koch Industries will keep choking us with, if only they can get rid of that pesky EPA that stands in their way.
If Charles and David Koch want us to like them, I would suggest that they stop their campaign to make life difficult for the rest of us. It would also be a good idea if they stopped trying to dirty our air and water and abolishing the only federal agency actively protecting our air and water, the EPA. Perhaps they also could donate a huge percentage of their wealth to helping the poor. Certainly, they do not need as much money as they have.
In a addition, they should support a decent wage along with decent benefits and unless they have a much better plan to provide health care for everyone at an affordable cost, leave Obamacare alone. Then perhaps they will actually be doing something for all our well-being.