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koch brothers
Sanders Report Details Plot by Right-Wing Billionaires to 'Sabotage' Public Education
"Instead of siphoning money and increasing tax breaks to subsidize private education, we have a responsibility to ensure all students have access to quality K-12 education."
Jun 25, 2024
Sen. Bernie Sanders released a report Tuesday detailing how right-wing billionaires are bankrolling coordinated efforts to privatize U.S. public education by promoting voucher programs that siphon critical funding away from already-underresourced public schools.
The report notes that last year, the American Federation for Children (AFC)—an organization funded by former Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos—"ousted state lawmakers in Iowa and Arkansas who resisted proposals to subsidize private education in states and passed expansive private school vouchers."
Aided by millions of dollars in funding from DeVos and her husband, "AFC's political affiliates and allies spent $9 million to win 277 out of 368 races to remove at least 40 incumbent lawmakers," the report adds.
The DeVos family is hardly alone in using its wealth to undercut U.S. public education. The Bradley Foundation, which has been knee-deep in efforts to privatize education in Wisconsin and across the country, spent $7.5 million in 2022 "to fund 34 state affiliates of the State Policy Network to push conservative policy agendas, including privatizing education, and $8.3 million to building a youth movement to 'win the American Culture War.'"
"The Koch-sponsored group, American Encore, has funneled substantial amounts into state governor races and ballot initiatives around the country, including more than $1.4 million to elect Arizona's former governor Doug Ducey in 2014 (who led the efforts to create the nation's first universal private school voucher)," the report adds.
"For too long, there's been a coordinated effort to sabotage our public schools and privatize our education system. Unacceptable."
The analysis also names billionaires Jess Yass of Susquehanna International Group, Richard Uihlein of Uline, and Bernard Marcus of Home Depot, all of whom have recently donated to the School Freedom Fund—a PAC that supports voucher programs and shuttering the U.S. Education Department.
School voucher programs
disproportionately benefit wealthy families, analyses have shown, while undercutting the goal of serving all students within a community.
"Over the past decade, there has been a coordinated effort on the part of right-wing billionaires to undermine, dismantle, and sabotage our nation's public schools and to privatize our education system," Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said in a statement. " That is absolutely unacceptable."
"We can no longer tolerate billionaires and multinational corporations receiving massive tax breaks and subsidies while children in America are forced to go to understaffed, underresourced, and underfunded public schools," Sanders continued. "On this 70th anniversary year of Brown v. Board of Education, let us recommit to creating an education system that works for all of our people, not just the wealthy few."
The new report, authored by the Senate HELP Committee's majority staff, comes days after Sanders presided over a hearing at which a pair of public school teachers decried the low educator pay and lack of resources plaguing schools across the U.S. and threatening the foundations of the country's public education system.
The committee's report shows that while most states have chronically underfunded their public schools, spending on voucher programs that subsidize private schools with taxpayer dollars has surged across the country. Between 2008 and 2019, according to a recent analysis cited in the report, Florida ramped up spending on voucher programs by 313% while "decreasing per-pupil funding of public schooling by 12%."
"The expansion of private school voucher programs forces very real tradeoffs. Money spent on private school vouchers could instead be used to hire teachers, raise wages, hire school counselors, and invest in high-quality academics for students," reads the new report, which estimates that "Arizona could hire 15,730 more public K-12 teachers with the money it is instead spending on private school vouchers."
The report calls on Congress to help reverse the trend of billionaire-backed school privatization by investing more in public education—including early childhood education and community schools—and by passing Sanders' legislation to set the pay floor for U.S. public school teachers at $60,000 a year.
The report also recommends passage of the
College for All Act, a Sanders-led bill that would make public colleges and universities tuition-free for students from households making less than $250,000 a year.
"As the richest country in history, the United States should have the best education system in the world," Sanders' report reads. "Our public education system is not perfect—it is underfunded and racially and socioeconomically segregated. Our educators are not respected or paid nearly what they deserve."
"Massive tax breaks to the wealthiest people and largest corporations are being prioritized over opportunities to progressively raise revenue to support social services and public education," the report continues. "Instead of siphoning money and increasing tax breaks to subsidize private education, we have a responsibility to ensure all students have access to quality K-12 education. This requires adequate and equitable funding and addressing structural challenges in our public schools."
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Supreme Court Hears Koch-Backed Cases Designed to Unleash Deregulatory Bonanza
"Everything from the climate to consumer safety could be worse off thanks to this potential decision and the corporate lobbyists who brought us to this point."
Jan 17, 2024
The conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in a pair of cases taking direct aim at a critical precedent that, if overturned, would gut federal agencies' ability to set and enforce regulations—a potentially massive blow to the climate, civil rights, public health, and more.
Central to Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce is the so-called Chevron doctrine, which stems from a 1984 Supreme Court opinion that said judges should defer to federal agencies' reasonable interpretation of a law if Congress has not specifically addressed the issue.
The precedent has long been a target of the fossil fuel industry and right-wing groups that are backing the plaintiffs in Loper and Relentless, both of which involve herring fishermen who challenged federal rules requiring them to pay for onboard compliance monitors.
Organizations that have received millions of dollars from the oil-soaked Koch network are supporting the effort to overturn the Chevron doctrine. In Loper, the plaintiffs' lawyers are "working pro bono and belong to a public-interest law firm, Cause of Action, that discloses no donors and reports having no employees," The New York Timesreported Tuesday.
"However," the Times added, "court records show that the lawyers work for Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by [Charles] Koch, the chairman of Koch Industries and a champion of anti-regulatory causes."
Relentless plaintiffs are represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a right-wing group that has received millions from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.
Caroline Ciccone, president of the watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement Wednesday that "the special interests who spent big to stack the court may get their way if the Supreme Court weakens the government's ability to hold industry accountable when they pollute for profit."
"Everything from the climate to consumer safety could be worse off thanks to this potential decision and the corporate lobbyists who brought us to this point," Ciccone added.
Earlier this week, Accountable.US urged right-wing Justice Neil Gorsuch—who has criticized the Chevron doctrine—to recuse from Loper, citing his ties to a billionaire oil tycoon who is positioned to benefit from a ruling that scraps the decades-old precedent. Justice Clarence Thomas also faced calls to recuse over his ties to the Koch network.
Neither agreed to step away from the case.
At the start of the Supreme Court's hearing Wednesday, liberal Justice Elena Kagan expressed concern that gutting Chevron would give judges who lack subject-matter expertise power over policy decisions previously made by agencies staffed with scientists and other experts.
"You think that the court should determine whether a new product is a dietary supplement or a drug, without giving deference to the agency where it is not clear from the text of the statute or from using any traditional methods of statutory interpretation whether in fact the new product is a dietary supplement or a drug?" Kagan asked Roman Martinez, an attorney for the plaintiffs in Relentless. "You want the courts to decide that?"
The U.S. Supreme Court, which includes three justices appointed by former President Donald Trump, has recently shown a willingness to curb federal agencies' power to enforce key laws. In its 2022 ruling in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the court's conservative supermajority limited the EPA's authority to regulate power plants under the 1970 Clean Air Act.
But environmentalists and others warned that a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in Loper and Relentless would strike a far more sweeping and devastating blow.
“The consequences of this case will be serious for fishery management, yes," said Meredith Moore, director of Ocean Conservancy's fish conservation program. "But it also puts at risk all of the environmental and social programs that keep our air and water clean, our homes and workplaces safe, and ourselves and our children healthy."
"If the Supreme Court eradicates Chevron deference, it will overturn 40 years of foundational administrative and environmental law that has provided stable public resource management," Moore added. "It will allow science-based management and agency expertise to be replaced with the inexpert policy and ideological preferences of unelected judges, potentially resulting in dramatically different interpretations of law across the country."
Tishan Weerasooriya, senior associate of policy and political affairs at Stand Up America, echoed those concerns, saying in a statement that "if the MAGA justices of the court overturn another decades-old precedent, it will greatly reduce the ability of scientists and experts at government agencies to defend every Americans' right to clean water and air, worker protections, healthcare, and more."
"Billionaires and elite corporations have been gunning to overturn this precedent for years, hoping to increase their profits even further if experts and scientists are no longer setting safety standards," said Weerasooriya. "If the Roberts court overturns Chevron, it will continue to erode our fundamental freedoms and safety in deference to the wealthy and corporations."
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The Terrifying Amount of Koch Millions Flowing Into US Universities
The right-wing billionaire's foundation pumped over $52 million into higher education last year to advance its libertarian agenda.
Dec 02, 2023
Charles Koch contributed $52.6 million in grants to colleges and universities through his Charles Koch Foundation in 2022, an analysis of the personal foundation’s latest IRS filing obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) found.
Last year’s total is $29 million less than the Charles Koch Foundation spent on higher education in 2021, and a small fraction of what the Koch political network spends in one year. A CMD analysis found that a fleet of 27 organizations controlled by the Koch patriarch, his son Chase, and other Koch Industries executives spent a combined net total of $656.8 million on political and charitable causes in 2021.
Koch political network spending is likely to go up in 2022 with news of Charles Koch’s gift of $4.3 billion of Koch Industries stock to the newly formed nonprofit Believe in People that Forbes reported on last month. Believe in People’s 2022 IRS filing is not publicly available as of publishing.
The new filing shows that the Charles Koch Foundation now has $793.7 million in net assets after less than $300,000 was contributed, but investment income brought in $108.9 million.
CMD identified 126 higher education grants in the filing, with some schools receiving multiple donations. Again, George Mason University received the largest amount of Koch cash, raking in a total $8.2 million. $5.9 million of this was directed to the university’s Institute for Humane Studies. Charles Koch currently sits on the Institute’s board of directors as chairman emeritus along with the Koch Foundation’s Ryan Stowers, who is the current chairman, and Stand Together‘s Brian Hooks.
Grant agreements posted on the Charles Koch Foundation website show that the remaining $2.9 million went to George Mason’s law school, economics department, and its Center for the Study of Social Change, Institutions, and Policy.
The next largest recipient of Koch Foundation funds was Utah State University, which received $3.1 million. $625,000 was directed to the Center for Growth and Opportunity (CGO) at the school, and the grant agreement with Koch shows that the remaining $2.5 million is for the Huntsman Scholar Program at the School of Business.
CGO was founded in 2017 with a $50 million commitment from the Charles Koch Foundation and the Huntsman Foundation. Jon Huntsman was the founder of the Huntsman Corporation, a multinational chemical manufacturer.
Rounding out the top three higher education grantees was New York University with a $3 million contribution from Koch. According to the grant agreement, this Koch cash is to support The Center for Social Media and Politics to “study how information flows online.”
While these grants were published by Koch, only a selection of grant agreements are listed to date in the section of the site dedicated to sharing information on annual grant agreements.
Almost 50 years ago, Charles Koch urged the Institute for Humane Studies Board of Directors to avoid giving money to universities unless they would help advance business interests:
[W]e have supported the very institutions from which the attack on free markets emanates. Although much of our support has been involuntary through taxes, we have also contributed voluntarily to colleges and universities on the erroneous assumption that this assistance benefits businesses and the free enterprise system, even though these institutions encourage extreme hostility to American business. We should cease financing our own destruction and follow the counsel of David Packard, former Deputy Secretary of Defense, by supporting only those programs, departments or schools that ‘contribute in some way to our individual companies or to the general welfare of our free enterprise system.’
In addition to the higher education grants, the Koch Foundation sent $2.3 million to right-wing litigation, advocacy, and other tax-exempt groups. The lion’s share of that funding, $1.9 million, went to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
Charles Koch is the CEO and chairman of Koch Industries and is worth $52.4 billion, according to Forbes.
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