From the Bloomington Herald-Times:
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Now we have the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity waging another notorious Astroturf campaign, this time to prop up Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who is facing considerable opposition from his own party to give Hoosiers a 10 percent tax cut when the Indiana Legislature is trying to restore already reduced funding to K-12 and higher education. The ads asking Hoosiers to support Pence?
They are indeed funded by Americans for Prosperity. Says Forbes magazine — no liberal rag: “The Kochs were co-founders of the group that ultimately became the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.” Sometimes these things can be tricky to pin down because these shadow groups don’t have to report their donors.
Will the Texas-based annexation of Indiana work? At this writing, it looks shaky. The Legislature still is on track to reject Pence’s tax cut and even stalwart Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma says the Americans for Prosperity ads are inaccurate and untrue.
Pence’s proposal is not only bad policy that could further erode public education in Indiana at a time when intelligent people agree that an educated work force is a key to job growth. It’s also clearly one strong-arm too many for the Legislature to take after eight years of supplication to former Gov. Mitch Daniels.
New GOP leaders in the Legislature are to be commended for growing a backbone, doing their jobs and asserting their own independence as the legislative branch of government and not lackeys for the governor. They may or may not be consciously fighting back against the limitless money that the reviled Koch empire is distributing across the country to change the balance of power in the states.
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