Americans for Prosperity’s legislative agenda is just Koch Industries’ corporate wish list

[applegrove]

Americans for Prosperity’s legislative agenda is just Koch Industries’ corporate wish list

by Lee Fang at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/americans_for_prosperitys_legislative_agenda_is_just_the_koch_industries_corporate_wishlist_partner/

"SNIP.....................

Americans for Prosperity, the grassroots organizing group founded by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, spent $125 million in the midterm elections last year. Now, they’re calling in their chips.


At the National Press Club yesterday, AFP president Tim Phillips and several officers with the group laid out their agenda. The group is calling for legalizing crude oil exports, a repeal of the estate tax, approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, blocking any hike in the gas tax, a tax holiday on corporate profits earned overseas, blocking the EPA’s new rules on carbon emissions from coal-burning power plants, and a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, along with a specific focus on the medical device tax.

The announcement was touted by NPR as a “conservative agenda for Congress.” But it’s also a near mirror image of Koch Industries’ lobbying agenda. Koch Industries — the petrochemical, manufacturing and commodity speculating conglomerate owned by David and Charles — is not only a financier of political campaigns, but leads one of the most active lobbying teams in Washington, a big part of why the company has been such a financial success.

Koch Industries transports both crude oil and coal, making the AFP’s work to legalize crude oil exports and to block the EPA from rules that would diminish the coal market in the U.S. particularly important to Koch Industries’ bottom line. As multiple news outlets have reported, Koch also owns a substantial stake of Canadian tar sands, positioning the company to benefit from approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. Indeed, on EPA and other issues, Koch Industries’ lobbying office in D.C. has instructed its influence peddlers to work many of the same issues as AFP.




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[MADem]

1. Americans for Prosperity--the prosperity of the two creepy jerks that fund the thing.

Those two are walking, talking, excreting and micturating reasons why we need serious campaign finance reform.

[applegrove]

2. LOL! I had to look up "micturating". Tell us how you really feel.

[MADem]

3. Heh heh...I've always thought that publicly financed elections were the way to go.

Keep those commercials OFF networks, and give every candidate an Over-the-Air channel where they can yammer all day and play their commercials and stump speeches. Require cable and satellite providers to offer all the channels, and make sure that people can see them even in the most isolated reaches of the nation (hell, we need to upgrade our "over the air" capability anyway, this would be a good excuse/reason to upgrade infrastructure -- and maybe it would give impetus for more networks to reach out to underserved communities).

[applegrove]

4. Can't happen fast enough for me.