You’ve probably heard a lot of claims that the Koch brothers are trying to control American politics with their giant checkbook. They’ve been called “homegrown oligarchs” who have “cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House.”
That’s an interesting claim, given that their agenda is to decrease the power government has to give favors to special interests like them.
But if you think the spending by the ultra-wealthy to forward their interests only exists in the Republican Party, think again. The truth is: Spending by the ultra-wealthy to change the American political landscape is not a phenomenon limited to the Right. The Left’s spending is potentially much worse.
You may know George Soros, the prolific political donor on the Left, who has spent billions on politics. He’s funded the Institute for Policy Studies, which as had multiple fellows call openly for “violent tactics to destroy the US government.” But do you know about billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, whose $74 million in left-wing political spending in the 2014 cycle made him the country’s top political giver; and his spending seems to have been successful, because he’s receiving government subsidies for his green energy investments.
Then there’s the Democracy Alliance, a network of so-called progressive donors who have helped distribute approximately $500 million to liberal organizations since its founding in 2005. They’ve helped fund the Center for Media and Democracy, which paid for a conspiratorial book alleging that the Bush administration sought to turn the country into a right-wing, one-party state.
Or the American Federation of Teachers, which since 1990 has spent over $92 million on federal elections, with $91 million going to Democrats and liberal, left-of-center groups. They’ve defended New York’s rubber rooms, where teachers go to do nothing and can still be paid for years on end, because the union has made them so difficult to fire.
The truth is, if you want to know about subversive political spending, you need to hear about what’s going on on both sides of the aisle. The Capital Research Center’s new website InfluenceWatch.org aims to bring balance back to this discussion.