The Koch Addiction

It’s not every day that a U.S. Congressman wants to talk to a reporter about his addiction. In keeping with his request for anonymity, however, I have deleted any references that might reveal his identity, and therefore refer to him in this report with a fictitious name, Congressman Boner.

RIGHT: The Koch Brothers peddle political addiction. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

GlossyNews: Congressman Boner, when did you come to the realization that you had a Koch addiction?

Rep. Boner: To tell you the truth, Barb, it wasn’t until I saw it among my colleagues that I realized how serious the problem had become. My own Koch habit currently runs to $1.5 million, if you count all the pushers in the gang. However, the Republican presidential campaign alone was fueled with $400 million in Koch money. Many Republican House and Senate candidates have a similar problem, and the same is true for the state offices as well, from governors to the legislative assemblies.

GlossyNews: Sounds like an epidemic. Why was it so difficult to recognize?

Rep. Boner: It’s insidious, Barb, and not always obvious. A lot of Koch money is laundered in nonprofits with innocent-sounding names like Americans for Responsible Leadership, which get candidates hooked on Koch injections before they know it’s in their veins.

GlossyNews: How do these injections work?

Rep. Boner: The Koch pushers get the candidates high on slick advertising that boost the candidates’ careers, often without any overt contact with the campaign itself. This makes them feel that they are more popular and important than they are, and it’s only later that they realize that they have a Koch dependency.

GlossyNews: So what happens when the dependency takes hold?

“Koch addicts will do almost anything to feed their habit. They will rob from the poor, take money away from students, cut medical treatment for the ill, poison the environment, and steal from the elderly.”

Rep. Boner: This is the worst part, Barb. Koch addicts will do almost anything to feed their habit. They will rob from the poor, take money away from students, cut medical treatment for the ill, poison the environment, and steal from the elderly. They also protect the Koch pushers and other cartel members like Wal-Mart, and make them wealthy beyond belief, which only leads to increasing addiction. Koch addicts in Congress are currently engaged in a major struggle on taxes to assure that no one touches Koch or Wal-Mart money.

GlossyNews: Am I mistaken, or is this a Republican problem?

Rep. Boner: You’re not mistaken, Barb, but if Koch addiction is rampant among Republicans, Democrats are also under the thumb of other pushers, mostly corporations. In fact, many of these corporate pushers try to keep a stable of junkies on both sides of the aisle. How do you think the tax rate got pushed down from 91% in the 1950s to 34% today?

GlossyNews: So what’s the solution?

Rep. Boner: Fear is still the great motivator. It’s how we get Americans to make great sacrifices to attack Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries that pose no danger to us. But it sometimes works the other way. Corporate America was afraid of what millions of American soldiers might do if they returned from the Second World War and found no jobs, so they accepted a GI bill, a cabinet level Veterans Department and unprecedented free education and social benefits, as well as consumer and societal protections. If the public ceases to fear its public officials and instead fills their officials with fear, things will change.