The billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch spent much of the eight years of the Obama presidency stoking fears about the budget deficit. Their political network aired an unending cascade of campaign advertisements against Democratic politicians, sponsored several national bus tours, and paid organizers in communities across the country to mobilize public demonstrations, all focused on the dangers of increasing the deficit.
One such ad even warned that government debt would lead to a Chinese takeover of America — which, for many voters, is a concern linked to debt. Another effort, also quietly bankrolled by the Koch network, used Justin Bieber memes to try to reach millennials about too much government borrowing.
Now that Republicans control all levers of power in Washington and the Koch brothers are poised to reap a windfall of billions of dollars through tax cuts, they have a new message: Don’t worry about the deficit.
The Intercept obtained a messaging memo from the Koch brothers’ network on how to sell tax reform legislation. The memo went out to members of the network of likeminded Republican donors, which includes dozens of wealthy investors and business executives.
The talking points suggest that backers of the tax cuts feel vulnerable to the charge that the tax cuts will jack up the deficit.
“In case it is helpful to you in your own discussions with lawmakers and others,” the memo begins, “below is a list of talking points that address some of the key hurdles to passing tax reform this year.”
The memo goes on to encourage lawmakers to avoid becoming distracted by deficit concerns when passing the GOP tax reform package (emphasis added):
“Avoid getting distracted on revenue neutrality; economic growth increases revenues. Some Republican Senators have expressed concern over supporting comprehensive tax reform that adds to short-term deficits. Though we fully appreciate those concerns, the long-term economic growth that would result from the first comprehensive tax reform in a generation would help to offset short-term deficits over time. That was the result of the Kennedy and Reagan tax reforms—there’s no reason this time will be any different.”
The current tax cut plan under negotiation would cost as much as $2 trillion over the next 10 years.
The messaging document claims that any shortfall created by the tax package will be filled by tax revenue generated by economic growth sparked by the reduction in rates. It’s the same “pay for themselves” argument used to justify the tax cuts passed by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003. “You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase,” Bush claimed.
In reality, the Bush tax cuts reduced revenue collected by the government and ballooned the deficit. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that the Bush tax cuts have slashed government coffers by more than $5 trillion since they were first enacted, and the cuts remain among the biggest drivers of the current national debt.
Stated concerns on the GOP side about debt and deficits tend to be driven by the fear that future tax hikes will be needed to pay them. Since the concern about the deficit is truly a concern about taxes, it makes sense that when a tax cut is attainable in the moment, worries about the deficit evaporate.
When wealthy donors now ask Republican lawmakers to ignore the debt, they will find some former deficit hawks already prepared to change their tune.
“It’s a great talking point when you have an administration that’s Democrat-led,” Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., the chair of the far-right Republican Study Committee, told the New York Times when asked about deficit concerns. “It’s a little different now that Republicans have both houses and the administration.”
Top photo: Koch Industries Executive Vice President David H. Koch, center, listens to speakers during the Defending the American Dream Summit at the Washington Convention Center on Nov. 4, 2011 in Washington, D.C.
Snooze Flash!!
“They (koochs) have a ‘new’ message..”
Dated.. September 24. 2010..
Lee *Iceman Fang
* https://youtu.be/InaRIYFPMiY
A Talk To Me Goose Production
Exec Producer- suave dong’r
bah’
Ahhh….the Koch brothers…..the backroom fascists….
Ah, nothing quite like robbing the American people to fatten your wallet, is there? And, once the federal government has become so atrophied it itself becomes dependent, guess what the next big power in line is?
Too bad we can’t enlist Anonymous to hack the Koch bank accounts, render them penniless and then give all the money to the people who deserve it.
This is all part of their drive to force the government into “ideological correctness”. Until Charles and David Koch convince the federal government that “government bad, money good!” they won’t rest. And there’s something about two Kansas hayseeds with bling who think they know everything there is to know because they’ve got money that tells me they’re both such big ignoramuses they’ll never comprehend that the biggest oppressor of all is capitalism. But that’s what happens when you grow-up with a silver spoon stuck in the wrong end.
Unrestrained capitalism is a joke. Only those who avoid what can be learned from American history since 1873 don’t get the joke. The Koch nanny state is much more onerous than the so-called nanny state we are in control of, and those brain-dead corn pones are dependent that Americans are too dumb to resist the agitprop that seeks to alienate us all from our government.
I think the main thing that makes me want to staple my head to a wall, and there have been plenty recently, is the blatantly unapologetic hypocrisy from Trump, his admin & Repubs. “EO’s are bad” “Dems passed ACA in secret” “Emails” “Goldman Sachs” “Deficits & trillion dollar debt” Go f#ck right off, Kochs!
If they are so dead set on these un-earned giveaways by ignoring the deficit how bout fixing our Social Security System first to give All The People hope for the future????
They never really worry about the deficit because they know that the government’s deficit is the private sector’s surplus. Their aim is to keep the income/wealth gap growing, putting even more distance between us and them. This is somewhat good news to me because of all the talk of a Constitutional Convention that seeks to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget. Such an amendment would reign in their tax cuts, too. So maybe they are thinking twice about that. Not that I believe they would ever be successful in pulling that off (at least I hope not).
Whether the deficit is a problem depends on who is getting money from the government. If I am, no problem. If you are, big problem.
In the mouth and ways of Obama: “Elections have consequences..”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/08/13/too_bad_obama_didnt_follow_his_own_advice_123650.html
One could interpret or misinterpret what Obama said which ever way one chooses. Just so you know, in case you didn’t know, it was the Republicans who isolated Obama.
They fought and rebuffed and disrespected him at every turn of his Presidency. The ACA should have been a bipartisan deal, but instead of looking after the best interest of the American people, they chose to fight and Block as much as they could. It’s small wonder that he had to do as many Presidential Decrees As He did. Republicans do this crap everytime they get in office. They grow the deficit which is not quite evident while they are in office, then the Democrats get in there, reverse the tax cuts by raising taxes on the wealthy (which makes them evil) only to have that money collected in taxes be parted out among the wealthy when the Republicans get back in office. It’s vicious cycle which only benefit the wealthy.
People elected Obama in a landslide because they wanted him to enact policies that the Republicans wanted? And the saddest thing about his presidency is that he didn’t do enough of what the Republicans wanted?
Bobby, that’s the biggest pile of crap I’ve read in a long, long time.
fairtax.org
Republicans don’t believe in cutting the deficit. They believe in making Democrats cut the deficit, should the vote-stacking effort fail, so as to save up as much money as possible to be handed out to the Republicans’ friends when they arrive in office. They always leave with as much debt as they can get away with at the time.
Uh huh. Right. Let’s see the alleged “document”.
http://images2.americanprogressaction.org/ThinkProgress/secretkochmeeting.pdf
It’s right there in the story.
Never mind. I wasn’t paying attention.
No, that document is from 2010, and does not contain the quoted text. I think it was linked to show the approximate set of recipients of the new memo, but I can’t find a link to the new memo in the article.
SCUM
Insatiably greedy sociopaths. Even if this pair were given every dime in the US Treasury they would still be angry, dissatisfied individuals.
No less than William F Buckley apprised Milton Friedman on Firing Line that the debt was being used as a ruse to privatize New Deal and Great Society programs. The public was further suckered with austerity that created more debt under the guise of reducing it.
Beyond having the global reserve currency that can issue infinite fiat confetti, trillions are on tap in dark money from the exchange stabilization fund. Wall St. parasites engineered structural debt from neoliberal deindustrialization, disasters including the 2008 pump and dump, a prison slavocracy, bailouts of too-big socialists, and inverted tariffs from which transnational monopolists are protected from all costs of developed nation production while receiving preferential corporate welfare.
Only a chump would believe it is possible for any nation to compete against the global leverage of transnational arbitrage.
Great! As usual
This was the same argument trump was trying to make the other day too… that economic growth will somehow reduce the national debt – it only does so if the rich private business owners whose companies’ growth is represented by that total “economic growth” number actually deposit some of that growth into the budget… and the only way they do that is via taxes (or voluntary donations to the government lol).
This is a diatribe we’ve been hearing since Reagan’s 1st term. Somehow if we cut taxes in key places, that will stimulate economic growth, and the revenues will be made up at the backside through that growth. It has never worked out that way.
Keep taxes where they are, for now (except the corporate tax, which needs to fall to Ireland levels to remain competitive).
Create incentives to “repatriate” the $6T or so held offshore, to invest in new industries and infrastructure benefitting American workers.
Renegotiate our trade agreements so they are more equitable.
We need to “restructure” the national debt – we are $20T in the hole, and our creditors need to understand that if they don’t work with us, they could end up with nothing, as the country collapses into bankruptcy. (Of course the America bashers would be happy to see that)
But none of these will help unless we do something about the elephant in the room. We have to significantly CUT GOVERNMENT SPENDING. Let’s start by cutting the military in half, or less. We’ll still have more military than the next 5 countries combined, but our focus will by necessity have to be more “strategic” than “tactical” – tactical has become too expensive to maintain.
Fiscal irresponsibility has gone on for decades, and it needs to stop now. There is no more road left, down which to kick the can.
And that federal “debt” so many are worried about is simply deposits in the federal reserve. Think of it as a savings account you’re not rich or important enough to qualify for.
All such “debt” could be erased tomorrow simply by returning the money to the account holders. However doing so would be quite stupid.
Also, given the fact that the federal government possesses infinite dollars, as long as they spend less than infinite dollars, calling it a deficit simply highlights one’s ignorance of how money works.
This guy must be Venezuelan
U.S. debt is a dollar balance in a securities account.
It’s all about the end of the estate tax. That is where the real give away lies
And this plan will balloon the deficit making precious dollars worth even less to those that
Hurt the most. Scumbag Koch.
Great reporting, Lee, and I hope the blatant hypocrisy ultimately costs Republicans support of those tea-party idiots the Kochs originally funded and helped create. I won’t hold my breath.
I also wish I could pretend Republicans looked like some kind of Lone Ranger where hypocrisy and selling out Americans to wealthy and corporate donors is concerned. I know you don’t.
Uh, I meant I know you don’t pretend, not you don’t wish you could.
Ow, my head hurts. ;)
Federal taxes reduce the money supply, federal spending increases the money supply.
Deficits & debts do not matter to a monetary sovereign since it can never run out of money.
All public goods can be free, not “free” as in other peoples tax dollars pay for them, but free because the federal government creates money as needed.
Learn how money works, learn how it is currently used to make a minority richer and everyone else suffer and struggle needlessly.
Agree. As a monopoly issuer of money, the government can never not have enough money to pay for things. The Constitution gives the Treasure the power to coin legal tender. The Treasure could coin a $1 trillion coin and pay for necessities or pay down debt. There is no concern about hyperinflation so long as the productive capacity keeps pace with demand. The entire way money is created is flawed. We the issuance of new currency automatically entails debt, that is wrong.
There were a few typos. I meant, “The Treasury could coin…”, not “The Treasure”. And “When the issuance of…”, not “We the issuance”.
Simple macro accounting shows that the government’s deficit is the non government’s sectors surplus.
Government spending adds to gdp, taxes take it away.
The national debt is a self imposed government rule that a government deficit has to be matched with a government bond sale. In the bond sale existing savings held in the private sector move into the government bond portfolio and the the new money is allowed to be created. The new money is additional to the bond money and adds to the total money supply and gdp.