January 2018 - What a surprise! Just days after passage of the one piece of legislation that unites all Republicans - tax cuts for corporations and for wealthy Americans - the politically active billionaire Charles Koch and his wife Elizabeth rewarded House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc) with an almost $500k donation to his "Team Ryan" Political Action Committee. This information was first reported by the International Business Times, having been gleaned from a recent campaign donor report.

(According to the Wall Street Journal, this contribution follows millions of dollars spent by Charles Koch and his brother David to help pass the legislation. The Journal also reports that the brothers plan on spending millions more in a public relations campaign to help boost the law's support among the public at large.)

The new tax law, which received unanimous support from Senate Republicans, and was signed into law by Donald Trump, directly benefits the Koch family in three, and possibly four, ways:

The corporate tax rate paid by the brothers' privately-held corporation, Koch Industries, was reduced from 35% to 21%, thereby saving the company billions of dollars.
The estate tax, which today is paid by only ~5,500 estates each year, will see it's exempted amounts roughly doubled, which will save the Koch heirs additional millions of dollars.
Personal income taxes will fall for the mega-rich, in part due to a rate reduction in the top tax brackets and to a higher exempted amount for the Alternative Minimum Tax (Donald Trump's taxes in 2005, the only year for which some of his tax information is available, went from $5.3m to $36.5m due to the impact of the AMT.)
Special provisions for gas and oil, which we still need to research the exact details on, also may benefit Koch Industries. The company operates oil refineries and pipelines, as well as non-energy businesses.

As for the impact of the tax legislation on the rest of us, some may see a small reduction in their taxes, while others will see an immediate increase in their taxes. Our position? The rest of us should be getting the bulk of any tax breaks and, as even many millionaires have argued, including Donald Trump at one time, the well-off should be paying more taxes to help pay down the national debt.

Longer term may be even worse for the rest of us. Most analyses we've seen project higher taxes in the future because the law increases rates by 2027 without reinstating the personal exemption, the deductibility for moving expenses, casualty and theft losses, etc., or allowing full deductibility of state and local taxes. If you feel we're wrong on any of these details, drop us a clarifying note and we'll correct any errors.

(Speaker Ryan enjoys a laugh with colleagues - image from theatlantic.com)

Political contributions and spending like those made by the Kochs (some may call them payoffs) have been perfectly legal for the last nine years, ever since the conservative majority on the Supreme Court overturned a hundred years of precedent and declared any limits on campaign contributions to be unconstitutional. As we discussed in one of our first articles, "Has the Supreme Court Legalized Political Bribery?", we believe this decision by the Court to be one of the worst Court decisions since the Dred Scott case, and one that is a direct threat to democracy and to honest government.

But with most of the Republican Party in agreement with the Court's opinion, the ability to buy politicians in this fashion is legal, at least for now. We're just surprised that the Kochs would be so blatant about it.

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