Koch Industries sent a letter Wednesday to senators declaring they are not pulling the strings behind the scene to orchestrate the government shutdown.
The company said it was pushing back against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who on Tuesday read from a news story that listed the Koch brothers, the wealthy owners of the company and major funders of conservative causes, as part of a web of those responsible for the shutdown.
Mr. Reid said in shutting down the government “we are satisfying the Koch brothers” while leaving the rest of the country hurting.
“Koch believes that Obamacare will increase deficits, lead to an overall lowering of the standard of health care in America, and raise taxes. However, Koch has not take a position on the legislative tactic of trying the continuing resolution to defunding Obamacare nor have we lobbied on legislative provisions defunding Obamacare,” Koch Industries’ top lobbyist Philip Ellender wrote in the letter to senators.
Mr. Ellender said Koch does believe the government should stick with “sequester-level spending guidelines” and come up with more spending cuts in the future.
“We also believe that Congress should work to rein-in rampant government spending so that it becomes no longer necessary to continually raise the debt ceiling,” he wrote.
He concluded: “We are hopeful this sets the records straight and that in the future Senator Reid and other politicians will stop misrepresenting and distorting Koch’s positions.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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