Friday, April 11, 2014

David and Charles Koch not the rugged free market individuals they say they are? Inherited Wealth makes for Big Talkers.

The free spending Koch brothers are like every other self righteous conservative who thinks they're entitled to a few extra benefits in life than everyone else. Inheriting wealth is one hell of a way to get a jump on everyone else. 

But do the Koch's walk-the-walk, and live by the same ideological political agenda pushed by their front groups like Americans for Prosperity? Even that names comes across like a sneering inside joke on seniors and low information voters.

The National Memo pointed out the Koch hypocrisy below with a list of 4 handouts they have no problem accepting:
1. In the midst of campaigning against the Affordable Care Act, the Koch brothers still managed to reap benefits from the new health care law. Koch Industries of having received subsidies under the Affordable Care Act’s temporary Early Retiree Reinsurance Program … the Associated Press confirmed … Koch Industries received $1.4 million in early retiree subsidies, which are meant to compensate employers who have to provide insurance for employees who retire before becoming eligible for Medicare.

2. Though the Koch brothers … outspoken critics of welfare programs that tend to help the poor and disabled … have aggressively lobbied for taxpayer handouts for Koch Industries refineries — the primary form of corporate welfare. Additionally, according to a ThinkProgress report, a failing Koch Industries oil refinery based in Fairbanks, Alaska once asked then-governor Sarah Palin’s administration for the type of taxpayer-funded bailout that libertarians routinely decry.

3. Despite advocating for a laissez-faire economic system, the Koch brothers obtained massive government contracts that allowed Koch Industries to buy millions of barrels of crude oil from the Middle East – specifically from Iraq, during the U.S. occupation. Koch Industries has also benefited from billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies in the form of federal government contracts and awards – billions of dollars Koch Industries never declined to accept.

4. The Kochs have also benefited from an existing provision of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal program, which conservatives over the years have condemned as socialist. A Koch Industries subsidiary and cattle ranching company, Matador Cattle Company, actually uses one of the New Deal’s existing provisions — the Land Utilization Program —  to “profit off of federal land for free.”

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