The Koch brothers have been largely sidelined in the news these days by, well, everything else, but that doesn't mean the pair of billionaire influence-buyers hasn't been busy. Donald Trump may have not been their first, second, or tenth preference to lead the conservative movement but they'll be dead in the cold, cold ground before they miss an opportunity to push through another round of tax cuts aimed specifically at benefiting themselves and their own businesses.
In a major jolt of support for President Trump, the powerful political network overseen by conservative billionaire Charles Koch is launching a multimillion-dollar campaign to drive Trump's tax plan through Congress.
Freedom Partners is all-in on this one, promising "advertising and mobilizing grassroots support." Translated, that likely means a resurgence of gosh-look-how-grassroots-we-are tea party groups showing up in public places with don't tread on me flags and very earnest beliefs about Charles Koch's current tax bracket.
Their interest isn't in a vacuum. Even as scandals swirl around the White House, there seems to be a new push by Republican leadership to pretend that's not going on and that it's now time to talk about tax cuts! Paul Ryan is all in:
And Vice President Mike Pence took time out from pretending to not be involved in Michael Flynn's vetting or the subsequent efforts to protect him or any of the other crooked things that have happened in immediate proximity to his own mouth and ears to promise that his not-yet-impeached boss will "sign into law the most consequential tax cut in American history."
So this isn't just happenstance. There's a push, between Republican leadership and the Republican funding spigots, to refocus attention on tax cuts with all possible haste. Perhaps they mean it as diversion, but it's just as likely they see the Trump White House collapsing with such speed that the window for passing such cuts is rapidly going away. We can expect a big, heavily advertised campaign to cut taxes for the wealthy in coming weeks and over the summer. It'll be up to the folks among us who don't have their own yachts and butlers and private islands to shut it back down.