If I was to selectively edit a few lines from Charles Koch's op-ed in todays Washington Post you might think that he’s Feelin’ The Bern.
The senator is upset with a political and economic system that is often rigged to help the privileged few at the expense of everyone else, particularly the least advantaged. He believes that we have a two-tiered society that increasingly dooms millions of our fellow citizens to lives of poverty and hopelessness. He thinks many corporations seek and benefit from corporate welfare while ordinary citizens are denied opportunities and a level playing field.
I agree with him.
Our criminal justice system, which is in dire need of reform, is another issue where the senator shares some of my concerns. Families and entire communities are being ripped apart by laws that unjustly destroy the lives of low-level and nonviolent offenders.
I applaud the senator for giving a voice to many Americans struggling to get ahead in a system too often stacked in favor of the haves, ...
So just when it sounds like Bernie has captured the hearts of the ultra-rich, Charles drops the hammer.
At this point you may be asking yourself, “Is Charles Koch feeling the Bern?”
Hardly.
What follows is a the usual call that what we need for more freedom is less government.
… but I disagree with his desire to expand the federal government’s control over people’s lives. This is what built so many barriers to opportunity in the first place.
Consider America’s War on Poverty. Since its launch under President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, we have spent roughly $22 trillion, yet our poverty rate remains at 14.8 percent.
Because if we hadn’t spent all that money on the poor they would have all been saved by the hand of the free market. He writes that it’s actual the government the keeps the poor down. No mention of the lack of jobs, unequal distribution of economic resources or mass income inequality. It’s really too much government.
I’m assuming Charles Koch is writing this to prove he’s just a reasonable misunderstood billionaire who can’t but help rubbing it in our faces.
That’s why Koch Industries opposes all forms of corporate welfare — even those that benefit us. (The government’s ethanol mandate is a good example. We oppose that mandate, even though we are the fifth-largest ethanol producer in the United States.)