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Kochs Plan to Spend $900 Million on 2016 Campaign

American said:
How much should the poor make? Obviously you don't want to address personal responsibility which is also a bedrock principle of the US. But let's drop that for a minute and ask how much should they make? You do realize before you answer that no amount will ever be enough, because as you raise their income others more wealthy will also rise up like always. Do you believe that we can get down to zero poor people? BTW, our poor people are way better off than the poor in Ethiopia, one of the countries discussed in the video.
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That's a difficult thing to put a number on, but the implicit agreement in an advanced society is a person doing the right thing, working a full time job and meeting some fairly low standard of competence and skill should make enough to afford the basics of life - shelter, food, healthcare, education for their children, and a tolerable retirement in their old age. Lots of jobs cannot provide those basics, and many cannot work full time, which is where safety nets come in.

I'll just add that I don't know of anyone on the left who has a problem with massive inequality itself. In other words the problem isn't that Warren Buffett is worth $60 billion. The problem recognized even by the true elites - the plutocrats if you will - is that as productivity has risen and with it the income of the country, almost all those gains have accrued to the top, with stagnant or declining wages for the middle and below. It's unclear how social stability is maintained as the world really moves to an economy that holds great rewards for the most skilled, but where jobs done by the masses will soon be replaceable by machines on a scale I don't think we can imagine currently.
 
imagep said:
I agree, that as the poor acquire more dollars, they consume more, and the owners of the means of production become rich.

And what's the problem with that? Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?
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Yeah, that's what's called a functional, stable, economic system!
 
JasperL said:
That's a difficult thing to put a number on, but the implicit agreement in an advanced society is a person doing the right thing, working a full time job and meeting some fairly low standard of competence and skill should make enough to afford the basics of life - shelter, food, healthcare, education for their children, and a tolerable retirement in their old age. Lots of jobs cannot provide those basics, and many cannot work full time, which is where safety nets come in.

I'll just add that I don't know of anyone on the left who has a problem with massive inequality itself. In other words the problem isn't that Warren Buffett is worth $60 billion. The problem recognized even by the true elites - the plutocrats if you will - is that as productivity has risen and with it the income of the country, almost all those gains have accrued to the top, with stagnant or declining wages for the middle and below. It's unclear how social stability is maintained as the world really moves to an economy that holds great rewards for the most skilled, but where jobs done by the masses will soon be replaceable by machines on a scale I don't think we can imagine currently.
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It always assumed by the Left that the inequality is caused by the evil 1%, and not the government. Of course you won't find a govt study implicating the govt will you? Laws, especially tax laws, have consequences.....many unintended.
 
Unrepresented said:
It's my personal responsibility to advocate greater equality for my fellow citizens.
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No, it's your responsibility to be the best you can be for your family. You can give to charity to help the poor as best you can. Try to vote for honest politicians to the best of your ability.
 
imagep said:
I agree, that as the poor acquire more dollars, they consume more, and the owners of the means of production become rich.

And what's the problem with that? Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?
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If you're a socialist or communist, that's a bad thing.
 
EnigmaO01 said:
Did you know that typically the candidate that spends the most money usually wins? What if you felt your candidate was the best candidate but a ton special interest money was spent on his or her opponent, and he or she won because of it?
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And don't forget all the opposition research and outright dirty psychological tricks. A bunch of that money will go for that. The Big Lie is a time proven technique and ALL it takes is enough money for people to hear the same lie from enough different sources and a predictable number of them will come to believe it is the truth.
 
Henrin said:
Wait...I thought Harry Reid and Elizabeth Warren said the Koch Brothers were anarchists?
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Nah. They're trying to do with libertarianism what the soviet boys did with communism. Paint a pretty picture to get them in power then screw everybody thoroughly.
 
NIMBY said:
The difference with Koch money is that it gets spent early and often, trashing Senators like Kay Hagan, driving up their negatives.
Meanwhile, DEMs had their collective thumbs up their asses, spending too late when minds were made up or turned off.

Nice that DEMs felt sorry for GOPs over Christmas 2013 by not pounding them on the shutdown.
GOPs didn't have that problem with niceties, trashing the ACA rollout over Christmas .
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It really is why we can't have nice things.
 
Hard Truth said:
Listed by rank, here are the biggest corporate donors, excluding industry organizations (which are also funded by corporations):
1 AT&T

3 Goldman Sachs

5 Citigroup

8 United Parcel Service

9 Altria

13 Microsoft

14 JPMorgan Chase

15 Time Warner

16 Morgan Stanley

17 Verizon

18 Lockheed Martin

19 General Electric

20 Pfizer

Much more info is available at Capitol Hill's Top 75 Corporate Sponsors | Mother Jones
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And? I don't think you understand how it works. AT&T didn't cut Barack Obama a check. Someone in Accounts Payable didn't say "Hey let's send a $50,000 check to Obama For America".

The donations came from the employees at these employers who willingly made donations to either the PACs affiliated with the companies, or directly to the candidates' campaigns.

These donations did not come out of AT&T's earnings, profits, coffers, general ledger, or slush fund for parties.
 
d head said:
Some say that, under the Citizens United ruling that unions contribute more to Democrats than the Kochs do to republicans, while others say that the Kochs are buying up our democracy in bigger numbers.
Fact is that they are about a wash, canceling each other out.
Citizens United hasn't really changed the balance much at all.
I believe the SCOTUS thought this all through before they ruled on it.
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The Koch's are major supporters of the successful "right to work" campaign. Which DIRECTLY attacks union campaign funding.

So it would seem the plan is to weaken the unions' ability to raise money effectively. And THEN use their wealth to have their way with the country.

Its not how MUCH, but WHERE they're focusing their cash.
 
American said:
No, it's your responsibility to be the best you can be for your family. You can give to charity to help the poor as best you can. Try to vote for honest politicians to the best of your ability.
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I can help my family more by ensuring opportunity through equality.
 
American said:
It always assumed by the Left that the inequality is caused by the evil 1%, and not the government. Of course you won't find a govt study implicating the govt will you? Laws, especially tax laws, have consequences.....many unintended.
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I'm not sure what that has to do with anything I posted....

But on this new subject, look back in history and find me a time with anything resembling a middle class that doesn't have "big government." I don't think you'll be successful. Wealth always tends to accumulate in the hands of a very, very tiny few.
 
Jack Hays said:
Lucky for us the US ranks low. In this country the term is a propaganda meme, not a problem.
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It's not a "propaganda meme" when the term is used accurately, and I'd say applying it to Wall Street is accurate for example, defense/"national security" also. And groups like ALEC are trying like heck to spread it to other industries what with the whole industry lobbyists writing bills that legislators occasionally forget to edit out the real author in Word right there on the legislation.... Prison industry is always a nice place for crony capitalism to flourish. Etc.
 
JasperL said:
It's not a "propaganda meme" when the term is used accurately, and I'd say applying it to Wall Street is accurate for example, defense/"national security" also. And groups like ALEC are trying like heck to spread it to other industries what with the whole industry lobbyists writing bills that legislators occasionally forget to edit out the real author in Word right there on the legislation.... Prison industry is always a nice place for crony capitalism to flourish. Etc.
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Interested parties have drafted legislation since the founding of our Republic.
 
OrphanSlug said:
Tthe odds are not as good as you think. You have about a 1 and 11 million chance of being attacked by a shark standing in 2 feet of water, and about a 1 and 3 million chance of being struck by lightning (when there is supposed to be lightning.)

Odds of hitting the powerball grand prize, about 1 and 175 million. Good luck!
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Thank you but I don't play. Most of the winners end up bankrupt and miserable anyway.
 
tres borrachos said:
And? I don't think you understand how it works. AT&T didn't cut Barack Obama a check. Someone in Accounts Payable didn't say "Hey let's send a $50,000 check to Obama For America".

The donations came from the employees at these employers who willingly made donations to either the PACs affiliated with the companies, or directly to the candidates' campaigns.

These donations did not come out of AT&T's earnings, profits, coffers, general ledger, or slush fund for parties.
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"..In its 2010 case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the United States Supreme Court overturned sections of the Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (also known as the McCain-Feingold Act) that had prohibited corporate and union political independent expenditures in political campaigns.[5] Citizens United made it legal for corporations and unions to spend from their general treasuries to finance independent expenditures related to campaigns, but did not alter the prohibition on direct corporate or union contributions to federal campaigns.[6][7] Organizations seeking to contribute directly to federal candidate campaigns must still rely on traditional PACs for that purpose.[8]..."
 
Unrepresented said:
We can produce regulations, taxes, and provide social incentives to decrease the desire to gain such offensive levels of wealth at the expense of others.
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Sounds like a slippery slope to me.
 
Jack Hays said:
Do you dispute the evidence?
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Well number one; it's a cut and paste article with no journalistic research or interview involved. Secondly, a number of the people quoted have an ax to grind, so yes, I dispute it.
 
Hard Truth said:
"..In its 2010 case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the United States Supreme Court overturned sections of the Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (also known as the McCain-Feingold Act) that had prohibited corporate and union political independent expenditures in political campaigns.[5] Citizens United made it legal for corporations and unions to spend from their general treasuries to finance independent expenditures related to campaigns, but did not alter the prohibition on direct corporate or union contributions to federal campaigns.[6][7] Organizations seeking to contribute directly to federal candidate campaigns must still rely on traditional PACs for that purpose.[8]..."
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Did you read the Mother Jones link that you provided earlier? It showed the breakdown of the donations from those companies that you listed. x percentage from employees, x percentage from PACs.

Now please show me a link that shows how many checks AT&T cut directly to candidates from their coffers.

Citizens United benefitted unions more than corporations. It allowed unions to use their members dues for political donations.

So again, show me where corporations are taking money from their coffers and making donations directly to candidates. You can't, because "independent expenditures" are advertisements, not campaign donations.
 
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