Charles Koch: We’re creating welfare for the wealthy

Yahoo Finance ^ | November 17,2015 | Deirdre Hughes

[Hojczyk]

Charles Koch, the billionaire CEO of Koch Industries, says welfare is making people’s lives worse, but he’s not talking about welfare for low-income parents or the elderly. He’s aiming at a much bigger target. He’s talking about welfare for some of the most valuable companies in the world in the form of government handouts such as tax breaks and subsidies.

Before you go on a rant about how Koch’s own company—the second largest private company in the United States behind Cargill—benefits from the very same corporate benefits, he readily acknowledges that fact.

In his new book, Good Profit: How Creating Value for Others Built One of the World’s Most Successful Companies, Koch writes:

“We advocate the elimination of all these distortions, even those from which we currently benefit – such as ethanol mandates, restrictions on the export of crude oil and natural gas, and import tariffs. As an ethanol producer and large consumer of U.S. crude oil and natural gas, we profit short term from these market distortions. But rules like these – that don’t lead to good profit – leave virtually everyone worse off long term, including us.”

In an effort to change that, Koch is advocating for CEOs to reject the tax breaks and to push for changes in the laws that have netted America’s largest corporations hundreds of billions of dollars. It may seem like a fool’s errand to try to convince a CEO of a massive multinational corporation who must answer to a board and shareholders to forego anything that boosts their company’s bottom line.

Good Jobs First, which tracks government subsidies, some of the biggest companies in the United States received hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants and tax credits. General Electric (GE) received $836,000,000 and General Motors (GM) received $529,000,000.

[digger48]

Made by GE, installed in Indiana by German Energy Producer E-on to harvest the wind US taxpayer subsidies to offset their losses caused by their own countries insane energy regulations.

[SoFloFreeper]

Even though Koch is pro-same sex fake marriage, I think he is absolutely right. Welfare for the rich AND the poor needs to stop at the federal level.

No more stealing from the middle class to fund the wishes of the upper and lower echelons of society.

States, and more appropriately, INDIVIDUALS should be free to use their hard earned income to help whoever they see and/or believe is fit. That creates more accountability.

Elimination of corporate welfare would encourage competition and small business expansion.