New reporting from The Guardian shows that Americans for Prosperity is launching a muilti-million dollar, dark money-funded lobbying effort with a goal of extending Trump’s 2017 cuts and pushing for a pro-deregulation agenda.
Charles Koch’s network of dark money groups led the charge to block President Biden’s one-time student loan relief, dismantled the Chevron doctrine, and now they’re gearing up to ram through a deregulatory agenda and pass tax cuts for the wealthy. These billionaire-led efforts promise massive paydays for corporations like Koch industries while leaving hardworking Americans to pick up the tab through cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and public services. They’re using Trump’s administration to further enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.
The Guardian: Charles Koch’s network launches $20m campaign backing Trump tax breaks
Ed Pilkington
01/27/2025
Key points:
- Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the flagship political arm of the rightwing network formed by the fossil fuels billionaire Charles Koch and his late brother David, is launching a multimillion-dollar campaign backing Donald Trump’s plans to extend tax cuts and roll back federal regulations.
- A private fundraising letter from AFP to its secretive list of donors, seen by the Guardian, outlines the organization’s strategy for the first six months of the new Trump administration.
- The eight-page document, made public here for the first time, promises a “herculean undertaking” in which AFP says it will press for renewed and deepened tax cuts and an “unwinding [of] as many of the growth and innovation killing regulations as possible”.
- The group, which has played a significant role in shifting the Republican party to the right in recent years, has announced a $20m campaign to extend the tax cuts introduced by Trump during his first presidency that are due to expire at the end of this year. The donor appeal calls for even bolder tax cuts for corporations that would directly benefit Koch Industries, the energy and chemicals giant from which most of AFP’s funding derives.
- As such, it speaks to the oligarchy of “extreme wealth, power and influence” coalescing around Trump, which Joe Biden warned about in his final address from the Oval Office.
- It is estimated that the Kochs, who own the US’s second-largest privately held company, have benefited by more than $1bn a year from Trump’s tax cuts. That bonanza would continue were the reduced corporate and income tax rates effected by Trump continued.
- Koch Industries, which includes major oil refining and distribution interests, also stands to profit from any curtailment of federal environmental regulations combatting the climate crisis.
- Extending the tax cuts is one of the key policy aims of the second Trump administration, at an estimated cost of $5tn. Such a massive expense would require deep cuts to public services, including potentially slashing MediCaid.
- Trump got his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act through Congress with the help of a $20m ad campaign by AFP. Before he died, David Koch boasted: “AFP worked very closely with the White House to win passage of the tax reform plan President Trump outlined.”
- The AFP donors’ letter depicts the tax cuts as a “huge win for the American people”, including “low- and middle-income Americans making less than $50,000”. In fact, the cuts have disproportionately benefited wealthy Americans and corporations like Koch Industries.
- The prospectus says that AFP will mount a huge lobbying effort with a goal of 1,500 meetings on Capitol Hill to “turn up the heat” on Congress members who do not support extending the tax cuts and rewarding those who do.
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