Who said it? "Get rid of all this corporatism, this corporate welfare . . . I would love to have the government stop this corporate welfare--that's what I want . . . This is a huge racket that's wrecking the country."
Did you guess Bernie Sanders? Probably not because you read the headline. Yet no one could be blamed for thinking it was Sanders. But indeed, it was Charles Koch, who said it in an interview with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski that aired on today's Morning Joe. Charles Koch--one of the infamous Koch brothers that the MSM and Dems love to demonize as the epitome of greedy capitalists, the pair that Harry Reid accused of "dishonesty" and being "un-American."
Scarborough said that he was motivated to seek the interview to dispel the image of the Kochs as one-dimensional cartoon characters. And Sam Stein ticked off a list of issues on which the Kochs actually seem to lean left, including the environment, abortion and gay marriage.
So why does the MSM/Dem complex hate the Kochs so much? Simple: because despite their progressive tendencies on some issues, the thing that matters most to the Kochs--limiting the reach of government--leads them to support, and above all give money, to Republicans.
CHARLES KOCH: Get rid of all this corporatism and corporate welfare . . . I would love to have the government stop this corporate welfare. That's what I want . . . This racket: this is a huge racket that's wrecking the country.
. . .
JOE SCARBOROUGH: You know, Mika, one of the things we wanted to do when we met Charles and Liz Koch, started talking to them and David, is actually get an interview to show that they're not the one-dimensional cartoon characters. Anybody that watched that, saw a guy that spent the majority of his time and focusing most of his fire on the Republican establishment in Washington, D.C., that's bought and paid for by crony capitalists, that raised the debt. I mean, I could go down the list of things. And the people that should be especially nervous this morning are the candidates he supported in 2014 because he even regrets that because now they're part of the process and being part of this corporate welfare that he loathes so much.
. . .
Sam, about halfway through this, you started ticking off the list of how this guy, not only wouldn't make it through a Republican primary, they wouldn't even let him on the debate stage because he's, again, not a one-dimensional character.
SAM STEIN: The great mystery of the Koch brothers is they have all of these opinions that would establish them as almost progressives. Thy're pro gay-marriage, pro-choice, they're worried about global warming, they actually do want tax rates to go up on the wealthy. And so sit there and you wonder, why does that network of money all seem to go to Republicans? It comes down to, they don't like regulation, and they want to do balanced budgets --
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: There are certain ideas.
STEIN: And those are their premiere issues. But they are complex characters.
JOE: And, by the way, in Kansas, they loathe farm subsidies.
MIKA: That was fascinating.
