It is NOT so that *you* can pay lower taxes. It’s more likely that you will end up paying MORE for services (that have been privatized, and that you will have absolutely no control over) and/or see lower wages for American workers.
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Privatization plan
Buried in Walker’s bill is a provision that says, “Department may sell any state owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount.” This is a push to sell off state assets, to give them to for-profit companies who can then charge the highest price while paying their workers the least. It is a part of the Koch and Bradley plan. Coincidently Koch is in the energy business.
Politics at the national level
On Jan. 5, 2011, new Republican legislators walked into the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and met with key people. David Koch was one of them. The Koch brothers are a political force on the national scene. They were the biggest contributors to the campaigns of members of that House Energy and Commerce Committee that regulates some of the main industries in which they are involved. Nine of the 12 new Republicans on that House Committee signed an Americans for Prosperity pledge to oppose regulation of greenhouse gases. The fact that the Koch Industries has been charged with many violations of environmental laws did not bother them at all.
But it is not only the Republicans who follow the Koch directions. The Clinton administration dropped all 97 counts of covering up evidence of a 91-metric-ton benzene spill in Texas. Prior to that, the Justice Department had pursued fines of $350 million for endangering the public and violating the law.
Making a killing off of misery
Koch Industries has a significant financial stake in derivatives as do other wealthy people. The top 10 hedge fund managers in the United States collectively made $18.7 billion in 2009. That is an average of over $1.8 billion for each of them for only one year’s “work.” The highest-paid person was David Tepper of Appalossa Management. He brought home $4 billion in 2009. How did he do it? When people were losing their homes and banks were going under, he bought bank stock on the cheap, and then later cashed in after taxpayers bailed out the banks. His company made $7 billion that year and he made $4 billion.
The Koch brothers and others are blaming the financial crisis on public employees—their wages, benefits and collective-bargaining rights. In fact, the crisis faced by the states and local governments is rooted in a system that puts bond ratings by banks and paying interest on loans above the needs of the community. It is a system that puts profits before people.
