Liberal

Lynch: Audio leak proves billionaires’ control over Republican Party

As if we needed an audio testimony to prove just how much harm the Koch Brothers have done to America, a recording of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell from a confidential Koch Brother’s retreat leaked last Tuesday.

The Koch Brothers, wealthy industrialists who back the GOP, held the retreat in June, 2014. On Aug. 26, YouTube channel “The Undercurrent” leaked a clip from the retreat of Senator McConnell claiming that he wasn’t going to waste his time helping middle-class Americans if Republicans take the Senate in November. In fact, he isn’t even going to consider raising the minimum wage, extending unemployment benefits or improve student loan rates.

It further proves that the real power in GOP politics is money, and our country will never have an efficient Congress as long as billionaires like the Koch brothers buy our politicians.

Obviously, McConnell never meant for these remarks to go public. And that’s exactly why these remarks are so important — it’s the real Republican strategy.

What will McConnell and the rest of the Republican caucus be doing instead of helping Americans? Shutting down the government and defunding federal agencies, according to the audio clip.



In the recording, Mitch compares “poison pills” or “riders” to important pieces of legislation — the same tactic Republicans used last fall when they shut down the government.

“In the House and Senate, we own the budget,” McConnell said, explaining that Congress doesn’t need the President to sign off on taxes and spending. “So what does that mean? That means that we can pass the spending bill. And I assure you that in the spending bill, we will be pushing back against this bureaucracy by doing what’s called ‘placing riders’ in the bill. No money can be spent to do this or to do that. We’re going to go after them on health care, on financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency, across the board. All across the federal government, we’re going to go after it.”

There are examples proving that billionaires are winning politicians all over the U.S. — specifically the Koch Brothers. In Wisconsin, the Kochs had their well-trained servant Gov. Scott Walker obliterate labor unions, work to restrict voting to the affluent white voters only and push privatized charter schools.

In Florida, the Koch Brothers’ bag-man Gov. Rick Scott followed orders to the tee by granting off-shore drilling access, killing the high-speed rail project that was going to create tens of thousands of permanent jobs in Florida and by purging the voting roles, according to CBS Miami.

The strategy of the Koch Brothers and other moneybags is to buy cheap-character politicians and to keep all of the money and power in one place to benefit the top 1 percent. And seeing McConnell, an important leader of the GOP, saying he would do anything the Koch Brothers ordered him to do is terrifying.

In the end, the muffled audio recording of the Senate GOP Leader will be politically beneficial to Democrats.
The fact that McConnell vowed no more debate on Democrats “gosh-darn proposals” just makes him the face of gridlock and dirty money in Washington. Elect the Republicans to the Senate in November and it will only get worse.

Jillian Lynch is a broadcast journalism and political philosophy major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @jillianlynch.

 





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