Background
Fred C. Koch, the father of Charles and David, was a member of the John Birch Society. He gave a speech in 1963 warning of “a takeover” of America in which Communists would “infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until the president is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us”. His anti-communism stemmed from his experiences in the Soviet Union, where the very engineers who supported the Bolshevik Revolution and told Fred Koch that they would one day take over the world, were later purged by that same movement.
David H. Koch was a Libertarian Vice-Presidential candidate in 1980. He advocated the abolition of Social Security, the FBI, the CIA, and public schools. Koch put $500,000 into the race, and he and Ed Clark, his presidential running mate, won 1% of the vote—the best Libertarian showing in a U.S. presidential race to date. But the experience caused David Koch to change course: "I had enough," he said. "We are not a nation that debates issues. We vote on candidates' personalities." By 1984, David had parted company with the Libertarian party, because, he said, "they nominated a ticket I wasn't happy with" and "so many of the hard-core Libertarian ideas are unrealistic."
Since then, Charles and David Koch have adopted a much less visible strategy toward advancing their libertarian agenda. In 1986, David Koch helped found the Citizens for a Sound Economy, and has given over $21 million to the Cato Institute.
The Koch brothers fund a multitude of groups including Americans for Prosperity, opposed to fiscally left-wing policies.
The Koch brothers have expressed the belief that economic freedom is essential for the well-being of society.
Charles and David have been targeted recently with harassment and threats. In April 2011, a Des Moines, Iowa office supply firm, Koch Brothers, reported receiving dozens of harassing emails and phone calls and even a death threat.
[edit]Charles G. Koch
Charles G. Koch funds and supports libertarian and free-market organizations such as the Cato Institute, which he co-founded with Edward H. Crane and Murray Rothbard in 1977, and is a board member at the Mercatus Center, a market-oriented research think tank at George Mason University. Koch supported his brother's candidacy for Vice President on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980. After the bid, Koch told a reporter that conventional politics "tends to be a nasty, corrupting business ... I’m interested in advancing libertarian ideas". In addition to funding think tanks, Charles and David also support libertarian academics and (since 1992) Koch funds the Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow Program through the Institute for Humane Studies which recruits and mentors young libertarians. Koch is also chair of the Institute's board of directors. Koch also organizes twice yearly meetings of Republican donors.
Organizations
Family Foundations
The Koch Family Foundations began in 1953 with the establishment of the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation. In 1980 Charles G. Koch established the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation with the stated purpose of advancing social progress and well-being through the development, application and dissemination of "the Science of Liberty," and in 1981 he inherited control of the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation when he was left in charge of Claude Lambe's estate. David H. Koch established the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation. Charles' and David's foundations have together provided hundreds of millions of dollars to a variety of organizations, including arts organizations, educational organizations, and libertarian or conservative think tanks.
Political organizations
Citizens for a Sound Economy was co-founded by David Koch in the 1980s,and, according to the Center for Public Integrity, the Koch Brothers funded it with $7.9 million between 1986 and 1993. In 1990, they created the spinoff group, Citizens for the Environment.
In 2004, Citizens for a Sound Economy was renamed FreedomWorks, while its affiliated Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation became Americans for Prosperity (AFP). Since then the Koch brothers have given more than one million dollars to AFP. At an AFP rally in 2009, David Koch said "Five years ago, my brother Charles and I provided the funds to start the Americans for Prosperity, and it's beyond my wildest dreams how AFP has grown into this enormous organization." AFP is the political arm of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, of which David Koch is chairman of the Board of Trustees. Americans for Prosperity created Patients United Now, which advocated against a single-payer system during the 2009-2010 healthcare reform debate. Both FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity have provided support for the Tea Party movement.
Charles and David Koch also have been involved and have provided funding to a number of other think tanks and advocacy organizations: They provided initial funding for the Cato Institute,[19] they are key donors to the Federalist Society, and also support the Mercatus Center, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Institute for Justice, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, the Institute for Energy Research, the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, the Reason Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.
As of 2011, David Koch sits on the board of directors of the Cato institute, the Reason Foundation and Aspen Institute.
Political activity
According to Koch Industries, it is committed to free societies and free market principles and supports those who champion them. For the 2012 election cycle, the Koch brothers plan to raise $88 million dollars.
Unions
Public records show that the Kochs gave more than $17 million between 1997 and 2008 to groups including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which lobbies for legislation opposing unions.
According to Mother Jones Magazine, Koch Industries' Political Action Committee contributed the second highest donation to Scott Walker's November 2010 gubernatorial campaign; in office, Walker and the Republican representatives in the Wisconsin House enacted limitations to collective bargaining by public employees, leading to the 2011 Wisconsin protests. In February 2011, the New York Times reported that Americans for Prosperity had lobbied for Walker's proposed bill.Because of the campaign contribution, David Koch became a symbolic target for the protests.
Lobbying for oil, gas, and chemical industries
Koch employees were the largest oil and gas industry donors to Congressmen and women on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is responsible for legislation affecting the industry. Koch employees donated $279,500 to 22 Republicans and $32,000 to five Democrats, including $20,000 to committee chairman Fred Upton (R-Michigan). Of the six Republican members who were elected to Congress for the first time, Americans for Prosperity supported five of their campaigns. Of twelve Republicans newly appointed to the Committee, nine signed a pledge distributed by Americans for Prosperity to oppose greenhouse gas regulation.
Koch Industries and its subsidiaries spent more than $20 million on lobbying in 2008 and $12.3 million in 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. In an article about the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study (Chair Richard A. Muller), Los Angeles Times reporter Margot Roosevelt called the Koch Brothers as "the nation's most prominent funders of efforts to prevent curbs on fossil-fuel burning".
The Claude R. Lambe Foundation, has donated to the American Energy Alliance, an offshoot of the Institute for Energy Research.
Free enterprise seminars
In recent years, Charles and David Koch have organized semiannual seminars to promote their political beliefs. In June 2010, for example, the event was held in Aspen, Colorado, and titled "Understanding and Addressing Threats to American Free Enterprise and Prosperity". The invitation stated that "our prosperity is under attack by the current Administration and many of our elected officials" and "we cannot rely on politicians to defend our free society, so it is up to us to combat what is now the greatest assault on American freedom and prosperity in our lifetimes". The seminar program mentioned that "past meetings have featured such notable leaders as Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas; Governors Bobby Jindal and Haley Barbour; commentators John Stossel, Charles Krauthammer, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh; Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn; and Representatives Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, and Tom Price."
[edit]Anthropogenic global warming skepticism
The Charles G. Koch Foundation is (along with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Bill Gates climate fund) a major funder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, an effort to resolve criticism of records of the Earth's surface temperatures (two of the project's seven scientists are seen as climate skeptics by many in the climate science world).
Documents obtained by Greenpeace under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act show that the Charles G. Koch Foundation gave climate skeptic Willie Soon two grants totaling $175,000 in 2005/6 and again in 2010. Soon has stated that he has "never been motivated by financial reward in any of my scientific research.
Impact
One 1997 study by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy identified 12 American foundations that have had a key influence on US public policy since the 1960s, particularly via their support for the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and Cato Institute. Three of these 12 are Koch Family Foundations (Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, David H. Koch Charitable Foundation). Charles Koch co-founded the Cato Institute, whilst David Koch sits on its board
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