The Betrayal of the American Dream by Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele Read Free Book Online Page B

elite enjoy—not the freedom enjoyed by the society as a whole.
    The vision of the Kochs and members of the economic elite for transforming America is by no means complete. The assault on the middle class that we detail in this chapter is just a prelude to actions that will further tighten the screws on working Americans if the privileged continue to set policy that favors only themselves.
    To carry out their vision, the Kochs not only continue to pump money into politics and think tanks but are aggressively launching vehicles they directly control, such as the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which was founded in 2004. Although the brothers’ combined net worth has risen over the last three decades from $532 million in 1982 to $50 billion, they decided in 2007 that the American dream—their version of it anyway—was somehow under attack and needed defending. So they launched what would become a regular conference, the “Defending the American Dream Summit.”
    This conference brings together hundreds of Koch supporters who pledge support for the goals the brothers deem essential to America’s future. At a conference at a hotel in suburban Washington in 2009, David Koch thanked followers and said their efforts were succeeding “beyond our wildest dreams.” Koch told them that meetings such as theirs were breathing life into the vision that he, his brother, and others have of creating a mass movement of Americans who will stand up and fight for the “freedoms that have made our nation the most prosperous society in history.”
    As Koch spoke, the gap between the richest Americans and everyone else had never been greater. The jobless rate was rising to 10.2 percent, the highest in twenty-six years. The number of Americans without health insurance hit a record high of 48.9 million. One in every seven Americans was in poverty. That month workers at companies such as Kasco in Atlanta, which made band saws and grinder knives, watched helplessly as their jobs were shipped off to Mexico. Only days before Koch’s speech about the “most prosperous society,” Heather Newnam shot herself to death as sheriff’s deputies closed in to evict her from her foreclosed home in Tamarac, Florida. She was one of 332,292 Americans to lose their homes that month.
    But those events taking place across America might as well have been happening on Mars for all those gathered in the conference room cared. David Koch told them that if they all worked together they’d preserve the principles that had made America great. “The American dream,” he said, “of free enterprise and capitalism is alive and well.”
    What Koch didn’t say is that free enterprise doesn’t offer everyone the same opportunities if policies undercut members of what once was the world’s greatest middle class.
    The year David Koch launched the “Defending the American Dream Summit,” Joy Whitehouse’s dreams came to an end. Barely able to afford minimal medical care and enough food to stay alive, she continued to maintain her independence by practicing free enterprise as best she could—collecting empty cans by the side of the road until her strength gave out and she died.

CHAPTER 2
    THE COST OF FREE TRADE
    J une 1979 was like any other month at the Rubbermaid plant in Wooster, Ohio. Out on the factory floor, huge quantities of plastic were being fed into massive injection molding machines, where it was melted down and then pressed into dozens of familiar shapes. Like clockwork, the big machines belched out storage bins, kitchen containers, wastebaskets, and other household products. Twenty-four hours a day the machines hissed and clamored, making staples for American homes—just as machines had been doing there for nearly half a century.
    All across America it was much the same story inside busy factories that month. Orders for machine tools, a reliable barometer of the nation’s industrial might, were up a robust 32 percent over the previous year,