Charles Koch vows to hold Republicans accountable

Billionaire activist Charles Koch said Sunday that his network of big-spending political groups would be more aggressive in going after Republicans who have failed to adhere to fiscally conservative principles.

Speaking to a small group of reporters in a rare interview at a five-star resort in the Rocky Mountains, Koch vowed to hold GOP lawmakers accountable for their votes when they break with the network’s free-market views on issues like spending and tariffs.

“I regret some of the [lawmakers] we have supported … we’re gonna more directly deal with that and hold people accountable,” Koch said.

The Koch network will spend about $400 million this election cycle on politics and policy, with much of it aimed at electing Republicans or promoting conservative causes.

But they’ve also spent money to hold GOP lawmakers accountable, particularly on spending.

So far this cycle, groups affiliated with the Koch network have run ads calling out 10 GOP House members and two Republican senators for supporting the $1.3 trillion spending bill that passed in March or for refusing to back spending clawbacks.

The network has also spent money on ads this cycle thanking Democrats who have supported some of their initiatives, like Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), who voted in favor of bank reform. Heitkamp is one of 10 Senate Democrats running for reelection in states Trump carried in 2016.

“I know this is uncomfortable, it’s uncomfortable for me too,” said Emily Seidel, the CEO of Americans for Prosperity, the network’s primary political arm.

“But if you’re a Democrat and you stand up to [Sen.] Elizabeth Warren [D-Mass.] and corral enough votes for financial reform … you’re darn right we’ll work with you,” Seidel said.

“I’m looking for policies that will move forward a society of mutual benefit, where everybody has the opportunity to realize their objectives, so I don’t care what initials are in front or after somebody’s name,” Koch said. “I’d like there to be many more politicians who would embrace and have the courage to run on a platform like this.”

“I’m happy and our organization is happy to support anyone and we’d love there to be more Democrats that support these values and these issues,” he added.

Koch network officials see an opening to work with Democrats on some of their top initiatives, like criminal justice and immigration reform.

Senior officials and top donors from the network, who have gathered in Colorado Springs this weekend for their biannual seminar, have been expressing deep frustration with President Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress for passing the $1.3 trillion spending package.

“If you’re a Republican who sits on the committee who wrote the worst spending bill in the history of our country, and you voted for it, you’re darn right we’ll hold you accountable,” Seidel said to thunderous applause. “The fact that we’re willing to do this during an election year shows we’re dead serious.”

Republicans will be touting economic growth ahead of the midterm elections, but Koch on Sunday warned that the president’s trade disputes could send the economy into a recession.

“I have no idea, it depends on the degree [of the trade war], yeah, if it’s severe enough, it would,” Koch said.

Koch did not back Trump’s presidential bid in 2016 and officials in his network have at times been withering in their criticism of the president.

“The divisiveness of this White House is causing long-term damage,” said Brian Hooks, president of The Charles Koch Foundation. “When in order to win on an issue, someone else has to lose, it makes it very difficult to unite and solve the problems of this country.”

In a video shown to donors on Sunday, Koch warned against “a rise in protectionism” — a swipe at Trump’s immigration and trade policies.

But he also noted in the interview on Sunday that the network has successfully worked with the administration on several of their top priorities, including experimental drug reform, the tax-cuts bill and criminal justice reform.

This weekend’s Koch network gathering at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs comes just 100 days before the midterm elections. Still, the network this weekend has largely eschewed politics, focusing instead on their philanthropic initiatives, like Stand Together.

Stand Together is one of its fastest growing groups, with a budget that has gone from $8 million only two years ago to $40 million this year. Stand Together works with 86 nonprofit groups developing programs aimed to lift people out of poverty.

Patience please.

Bilateral trade deals are in process to develop fair trade. You seem to think the President agrees with you. He does not. His efforts are to negotiate with trade pardners to facilitate more equitable dealings.

It’s possible that the trade with Taiwan is so small or the volume so slight that ite will not be soon. The big pardenrs with the largest volumes are first and the little guys will come later.

Re: What happened to our jobs over the past four decades...

Cheap foreign labor is yesterday’s problem.

Over the next four decades, AI and robotics are going to replace cheap labor of every kind - and most of the middle class, too.

My Prediction - a universal minimum income is the only way we can maintain peace in the streets.

The Good News - unlike human beings, machines and processes are infinitely perfectible.

If we have thousands of machines that can do the same work as millions of human beings, the standard of living for even the poorest people will continue to rise every decade.

"Over the next four decades, AI and robotics are going to replace cheap labor of every kind - and most of the middle class, too."

Is a CNC machine a "robot?" Or...a conveyor? What's so new about conveyors? CNC burners (duographs or lasers)?

I've done steel work from expediting, to cutting, burning, fabrication, machining (including custom) and assembly. I've done lower level programming and played with robotics, too.

On robotics and AI, we've been seeing a wash of propaganda. I saw the old tape CNC machines (new back then) sitting idle for years, even though they weren't hard to punch out and set up. Why? Because managers didn't want anyone doing anything there that management couldn't understand (vanity, control).

Those machines also developed backlash and other looseness. Looseness from wear needs to be compensated for in setups. Tools needed to be replaced often, as with the manual lathes, mills, etc. There are also custom jobs that require much more frequent setups of many different kinds.

There are cost, regulatory and other limits on natural resources. Conveyors, fixtures and many other many other machines require frequent adjustments and wear quickly.

Artificial scarcity and planned obsolescence will continue. The costs for most such machines are far higher than costs for human labor and begin with big debts.

Open source designs and small shops will cut the mega-corporates' designs on population control down to size. Western culture people will fight, if necessary to retain remaining rights against regulatory crackdowns from globalists and have retained more ingenuity than the globalists had imagined.

Look at the management problems in software and what that industry has been reduced to (bloatacious crapware, mostly offshoring, etc., due to PC personnel practices).

Most likely, the plan from globalists is to continue the propaganda blitz while having foreign, communist slave labor do the real work until those foreign communist nations launch nukes at us. Then, as they have telegraphed in so many ways, they hope to be in their hugely stocked hidey holes surrounded by slave security guards, hoping that the rest of the population will be exterminated. Their fantasies continue with a post-war, environmentalist paradise, where they'll frolic and talk with the animals.

Re: “On robotics and AI, we've been seeing a wash of propaganda.”

Revolutionary technology always takes at least ten years longer than advertised.

For the last three decades, America has had a massive over supply of low skill and medium skill labor. There has been very little financial incentive to invest in automation and AI since manufacturers can in-source and out-source cheap labor any time they want.

Last week I watched a guy on CNBC claim there is shortage of 500,000 welders in the USA. Get real. That means at least $50 billion of industrial orders have gone unfilled. If that market actually existed, there would be hundreds of start-up companies developing labor saving welding devices.

The only reason there is a “shortage” of welders is because American companies want the tax payers to train them first, and subsidize them second.

Every work day, there are hundreds of new businesses created in America based solely on the fact that we import 1.5 million low-to-medium skill LEGAL immigrants EVERY year.

That era is going to come to a screeching halt in the 2020s.

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