Koch Advocacy Group Hits Speaker Ryan’s ‘Buy American’ Tax Plan

The pro-jobs tax plan being developed by establishment Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, is now being opposed by the Koch brothers’ advocacy group, Americans For Prosperity.

The opposition of the Koch-funded group shows a widening clash between the GOP’s donors and Donald Trump’s expanding populist “Buy American, Hire American” coalition.

So far, the two groups have clashed over cheap-labor immigration and Trump’s successful candidacy. That clash was garishly demonstrated late December, when Trump publicly booted a friend of David Koch off one of his golf courses, prompting Koch to also leave.

Brothers Charles and David Koch opposed Trump during the Republican primary season and refused to help him against Hillary Clinton, partly because Trump and many of his voters oppose unrestricted trade and mass immigration. Koch Industries is the second-largest private company in the United States: Forbes placed its 2015 revenue at $115 billion, and the brothers spend much money to fund the AFP’s network of small-government political advocacy.

The Koch opposition to the new tax plan appeared Jan. 27 in a letter from AFP’s “chief government affairs officer,” Brent Gardner. He argues that the plan would lead to “a whopping tax hike of more than $1 trillion on American families and small businesses over 10 years.”

Supporters of the draft tax plan say it would prod companies to hire Americans and buy American products by first slashing the ordinary corporate tax and but then imposing a 20 percent “border adjustment” tax on imported goods and components. Companies would avoid the “border adjustment” tax by hiring Americans, or buying U.S.-built robots or buying U.S-manufactured parts.

The Koch brothers do not represent “the donor class”. There were plenty of other big donors who gave to Trump. I would say further that the Koch brothers represent themselves and other non-big-donor Conservatives outside of a majority of “the donor class” that did give to Trump. You ignore that the Koch brothers were also NOT for Bush and many others either.

Trump was right a week ago when he said he did not favor the House measure that would be a total “tariff” across the board, disguised as a “border adjustment” tax.

“Imports” are not merely “consumer goods”, they are also components and materials our manufacturers need and use as well. It is an error to assume that all such things have a domestic alternative and wrong to “throw out the baby with bath water” by punishing everyone for “imports”. And yes, it will punish everyone, because the cost increase will be felt in higher prices across all kinds of things Americans produce and American consumers buy. Those higher prices will amount to a TAX, ON THE CONSUMER.

The emotionalism of “buy American” cannot use a blunderbuss shotgun of a de facto tariff without understanding it shoots everyone.

“Brothers Charles and David Koch opposed Trump during the Republican primary season and refused to help him against Hillary Clinton.”

The Koch brothers are for the 1% and will doggedly fight for them.

It seems their attitude is “to hell with American workers and the middle class.”

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