Documents and interviews unearthed in recent months by Brave New Foundation researchers illustrate a $28.4 million Koch business that has manufactured 297 commentaries, 200 reports, 56 studies and six books distorting Social Security's effectiveness and purpose.
Together, the publications reveal a vast cottage industry comprised of Koch brothers' spokespeople, front groups, think tanks, academics and elected officials, which have built a self-sustaining echo chamber to transform fringe ideas into popular mainstream public policy arguments.
The Koch brothers' echo chamber has successfully written the messaging for the AARP, a traditional defender of Social Security for all generations, which recently opened the door to cutting benefits.
The Koch echo chamber begins with think tanks like the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation and Mercatus Center at George Mason University and the Reason Foundation, which owe their founding and achievements to Koch backing. These think tanks take their $28.4 million in Koch funding and produce hundreds of position papers distorting the long-term health of Social Security.
The authors of these hundreds of self-described policy studies, newsletters, commentaries and books are then paraded through television, print and online news media. Their distorted message is amplified through shows like Hannity, with its 3.3 million viewers per episode, or CNBC's Kudlow Report and its roughly 300,000 viewers per episode night after night after night.
Eventually, elected officials react to the Koch echo chamber and typically shift their position for reelection or the next campaign.
The investigation revealed Koch-supported policy fixes, and specific language repeated across each document, such as raising the retirement age or eliminating cost of living adjustments for Social Security dependents and beneficiaries.
These Koch ideas percolate through the echo chamber and into the mainstream. The frequency and repetition of the arguments supplant more popular policy recommendations like scrapping the Social Security tax cap, which would free individuals earning more than $106,800 annually to pay taxes on all of their wages, like everyone else.
"The Koch brothers job is to do everything they can to dismember government in general," Sen. Bernie Sanders says in this video. "If you can destroy Social Security, you will have gone a long way forward in that effort."
The Koch echo chamber has been so effective that AARP, a traditional advocate and defender of Social Security, has repositioned its policy to open the door to cut Social Security benefits for dependents and beneficiaries.
Counter the Koch billions and protect social security. Create an echo chamber of truth and share this video with your friends and family.
The echo chamber, coupled with AARP's shift toward cutting Social Security, pushes the argument further toward the Koch brothers' goals. Influential opinion-shapers in venerable news outlets will react and have already begun to referee disputes on new 'middle ground' that has, over time and through the actions of AARP and the Koch echo chamber, grown tolerant of the Koch brothers' talking points.
"The Koch brothers fund organizations, and you have economists and political scientists working there and they are very, very good at getting on television," Sanders said. "They are very effective in getting their positions out into the media."
That's further personified by the Koch brothers' lobbying. Koch Industries spent $857,000 on lobbyists in 2004, one year before George W. Bush tried and failed to privatize Social Security. They also donated $104,660 to his campaign. The attacks on Social Security needed more time to stew in the echo chamber before they could be mainstream, and given the increase in lobbyists, they have risen dramatically. AARP's shift is more proof of the Kochs' achievements.
In the first two years of the Obama administration, the brothers have spent $20 million on lobbying, according to the Center for Public Integrity. And they've diversified their donations to a slew of Republican opinion leaders and strategic Democrats who oppose revenue increases like Sen. Ben Nelson and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. And, with AARP's action, the Koch echo chamber has broken ground on a new political terrain favorable to their ideological and financial goals.
Almost overnight, a historic and popular service, like Social Security, faces extinction. But behind this outcome, the Koch echo chamber has been churning for years.
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Eric Laursen: How Social Security, Medicare "Plant the Seeds of Future Prosperity"
Secondly, they DON'T want to cut the payroll tax (but they don't want it's cap eliminated) as it is a vehicle for pushing the cost of government onto the lower classes. If the payroll tax continues but social security is slashed they can use surplus payroll tax revenues as an alibi to cut income taxes as was done under Reagan. Additionally, raising the retirement age keeps more seniors in the workforce and makes young, entry level workers even more vulnerable, giving corporations leverage to keep wages low and destroy unions.
Finally, they want to run entitlements through the stickey fingers of their Wall Street cronies. As is the case with our absurd privatized health care system, the flow of trillions of dollars makes for lots to skim off the top. What Iraq did for Halliburton pales by comparison. Running that money through Wall Street would also inflate the stock market and make their stock holdings even larger.
Right now that's what the deficit debate is about. Koch Bros hatchet folks in congress and state govts are using medicare, medicaid, social security as hostage. Damn be to the citizens of this country is their motto.
Low and middle income folks voting these republicans into control of govt since Richard Nixon days, this is your time of reckoning. Your voting and belief in these right wing conservatives ideology will comfort you when you have no jobs, no means of getting a job. Oh, that's happening right now. Be comforted in what you voted for, especially what you did Nov 2010.
"Movement strategists want to fully co-opt or merge the Religious Right, its organizing infrastructure, and its activists into the Tea Party wing of the GOP. So conservative Christian voters are being told that a radically limited federal government is God’s idea, and that right-wing economic policies are mandated by the Bible."
http://tinyurl.com/3z6zuu9
There is not one single marketable security in the so-called Social Security Trust Fund. It's all IOUs. "here's one for a Lamborghini, you might want to hold onto that one".
John Boehner raised almost $29 million during his career in the House, one tenth of one percent (-.01%) of the 30k total from the Kochs. Boehner has gotten more from the National Beer Wholesalers Association. When can we expect a propaganda piece about the vast beer distributor conspiracy? You can run it as a trailer before the start of Xan adue 2. On second thought....vise-versa.
Yet now it is convenient to you to point out that the money has been spent! (but they were not taxes!).
Your continual defense of the indefensible is rather pathetic, you have a compartmentalized mind that conveniently avoids facts when they do not please you.
By your writting I see a measure of intelligence - what is surprising to me is that you still think that we can be fooled - no sir!
Why not be a little more honest and just say it:
"Look I am selfish, greedy human being who believes that I have no responsibility nor debt to my country and I refuse to do anything that will strengthen our democracy if it means having to pay for it with any of my money!"
If you just get down to the basics then we can have a meaningful dialogue, but as you as you evade facts, as you choose and cherry pick data to back up your preconceived notions; it is plain for all that you have "made up your mind and that you will not be confused nor bothered by facts.
When has SS ever been anything but IOU's since it was designed that way, and the IOUs grew much larger after Reagan increased SS taxes in anticipation of the baby boomers? You ought to find out what Eisenhower's review by insurance actuaries had to say about SS before you display your ignorance.
"The number-one priority of this Government ... its only priority ... is ... MORE UNDECLARED WAR(tm)."
"War, Inc.," at its present but woefully-inadequate level of commitment (only 4 un-declared wars in progress at this time ...) is, above all other things, a ridiculously lucrative BUSINESS that is funded by more than $2 Trillion dollars a year. It consumes more Federal spending (yes, it does!) than all other concerns of the government combined ... most of it neatly "classified."
"War, Inc." pays nearly $1 billion a day in bribes ... which are actually openly acknowledged, and called "campaign contributions" or "lobbying" or "corporate freedom of speech." If you know that you're bringin' down more than $100,000.00 an hour just for saying "yea" to another spending measure, what are YOU going to do?
At one time, we might have been concerned that the Constitution stipulates that war must be declared, and that funding must be re-approved every two years. At one time, we might have worried about Article 2, Section 4's references to "treason" and "bribery." But, no more. The Supreme Court says that the Constitution really doesn't matter at all.
Really doesn't matter. At all.
FICA is a mandatory government retirement (pension & healthcare benefit) program. Businesses and individuals do not have a choice to opt-out and fund their own retirement instead. The only "choice" we have is to supplement FICA with personal retirement accounts (401k's, IRA's, etc.).
Given the private sector's (banks, Wall St. firms, insurers) abusive practices and poor performance, not many are willing to put their trust in those whom taxpayers had to bail-out to prudently-efficiently-profitably "manage" our money.
The exorbitant fees, commissions charged by them would dwindle the principle. There's no guarantee for customers against losses, even though the firms have such protection. When the market collapse again (as is inevitable), benefits would plummet, leaving retirees with nothing on which to live.
The "vouchercare," proposal is equally abusrd. The average cost for health insurance is $6,700/person annually. For those over 65, it would be higher than $8,000. The "premium support" would rise with COLA - inflation, while insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays have risen 131% above that during the past decade.
Of course they also support eliminating the department of Education and moving that power and many others back to the states.
Most importantly they do not seem to be party hacks and will speak out against both sides when politicians do things that violate their beliefs.
You said a mouthful there.
http://redwriteblue.blog.com/2011/02/16/morning-joe-scarborough/
Why doesn't Obama call these decimators out? Citizens United is feeding this disease of society. Why is our FBI not investigating WHO rammed CU through the SCOTUS? They just have to google "who owns the Fed?" and Koch and their foreign accomplices are named. Those who could care less about us are profiting off of us like dumbed down equity mules.
Wait till our farm and land is lost through inheretance and income tax, while FOREGN owned mega-farms continue to buy up our country and put us out of work.
When they own everything we will lose the right to bear arms. The internet is about to get a rebellion ki// switch.
Be aware. Knowledge is power.
Our bliss from ignorance is long gone, instead of course if you watch msm, then business is booming.
If this is a "true conservative's" main issue, then you have let paranoia and fear takeover your life. Get a grip. You need a grip more than a gun.
This should be headlines every where. Why do you think the T/Party was formed in the first place. The Republican brand was so burned after 06 they had to invent an new stealth cover.
Google "Koch Bros war with Obama" Newyorker Magazine It's all there.
There is another huge factor in play here tied closely to the Koch Bros.
ALEC American Legislative Exchange Council. http://www.justice.org/cps/rde/xbcr/justice/ALEC_Report.pdf
This outfit works with the Koch Bros and other big business bribing freshmen legislators and Governors in all 50 states.
Why do you think they are working in tandem state by state with the exact draconian legislation
They are crushing unions as fast as they can. Lying off thousands of public employees to cause a higher unemployment rate to subvert Obamas efforts to curb it.
Putting heavy restrictions on registering possible democratic voters that are students and the elderly.
The list goes on and on but I am running out of words to post.
Google The Sins of Ralph Reed
“We Paint our Faces Black and travel at night. In the morning they will wake up in body bags”
Ralph Reed
No one in Washington is protecting American property as much as foreign owned interest.