A new video circulating on the Web, mainly on liberal-leaning blogs, is accusing the billionaire Koch brothers of spending tens of millions of dollars funding a deliberate propaganda effort to win Social Security changes.
Titled Echo Chamber, the 3.47-minute video was produced by Brave New Films, and narrated by Independent Vermont senator, Bernie Sanders. Sanders and Brave New Films director Robert Greenwald have been working together since 2009.
The video says that David and Charles Koch, starting in the 1970s, have given millions of dollars in campaign contributions to influential politicians and think tanks, in exchange for support of their agenda of Social Security reform.
The film charges the Kochs want to privatize Social Security so that the $2.5 trillion dollar fund can be invested in Wall Street stock markets.
President George W. Bush proposed such a change but it did not become reality. It was generally considered that future retirees were fortunate that it did not, since the stock market sank in 2008.
“The Koch brothers job is to do everything they can to dismember government in general, and if you can destroy Social Security, you will have gone a long way forward in that effort,” Sanders says in the video.
The video pegs supporters of Social Security reform as intent on promoting two main ideas: that Social Security is going bankrupt, and that the retirement age must be raised to keep the fund solvent.
A number of individuals from Washington-based think tanks are quoted speaking to media in support of these two positions.
“They are very effective in getting their positions out into the media,” Sanders says, “and people will not know that they represent an organization which is heavily funded by corporate interests.”
It is evident that organizations cited in the video, such as the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Mercatus Center, and the Reason Foundation, support changes to Social Security.
A dollar value flashed in front of the screen to show the number of millions the Koch brothers have donated to each organization is offered as evidence of their control over a specific agenda.
According to a Brave New Foundation news release, the film is a culmination of months of research, but at least two video clips featured experts who no longer work at the organizations attributed to them.
David John, cited in the video, is a senior research fellow in retirement security and financial institutions at the Heritage Foundation, and one of the most influential people on the issue of Social Security.
He said in an interview with the Epoch Times that while he supports raising the retirement age for Social Security, his work is based on facts, figures, and research—not on financial contributions to his employer from the Koch Foundation or any others.
Veronique De Rugy, a Heritage Foundation expert, shown in a clip suggesting that an increase in the retirement age is needed, no longer works with the foundation. And Andrew Biggs, shown speaking to the media for Cato, wrote in a blog post responding to the video, that he hasn’t worked at Cato for eight years.
Biggs said that there are a large number of Democrats (who are clearly not favored by the Kochs) favoring raising the retirement age, including Sen. Richard Durbin, second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, who supported the proposal as part of President Obama’s fiscal commission.
The film was co-created by the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, a national coalition of unions and associations united around a principle that Social Security must be strengthened, not cut.
Charles and David Koch own most of Koch Industries, a Kansas-based conglomerate, which includes oil refineries, lumber, paper, oil pipelines, Lycra, STAINMASTER carpet, Georgia Pacific, Dixie Cups, and more. It is the second largest private company in the United Sates. According to New Yorker magazine, only Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are wealthier than the Koch brothers.
