Charles Koch acknowledges people’s frustration with government at chamber talk

We live in scary times, Charles Koch says.

Before a packed convention hall at Century II on Monday night, with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski urging him on, the man Scarborough called “one of the most important men in the world” talked a lot of family and a little politics.

The scary times have come because people are so frustrated with government that they seem willing to elect either “a socialist or a right-wing dictator,” Koch said. “Scary.”

He dismissed both ends of that spectrum, dismissed “socialist” Bernie Sanders running for president and dismissed Donald Trump, “who claims to be the biggest cronyist of all.”

“He says, ‘Yeah, I bribed all those politicians,’ ” Koch said of Trump. “His view of the world is a little different than mine, but I guess one (other) difference is that he’s running for president, and I’m not.

“And don’t anyone here even suggest that,” he said, drawing laughter.

Koch had agreed to speak as part of the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting.

Scarborough and Brzezinski, hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” talk show, were in Wichita to moderate the evening interview with Koch and to do their show from the Wichita State University campus Tuesday morning. That show will apparently include taped interviews they did with Charles Koch and his brother David, who helped him turn Koch Industries into a privately owned company worth $100 billion.

People who know Charles Koch may have already heard some of the stories he told Monday night, including how his father once told him “You plumb wore me out” – but they still got big laughs from an audience of nearly 2,000.

He talked about the graciousness he got from his mother, Mary, and the work ethic from his father, Fred.

He made fun of Sanders, who has drawn big crowds running against Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president. When Brzezinski asked whether he “feels the Bern” (Sanders devotees like to say they “feel the Bern”), Koch looked blankly at her and said no.

“I had not heard that, but I have heard all the nice things he’s saying about David and me every day. And I thank him. Bernie and Harry Reid (former Democratic Senate majority leader) have helped me sell a LOT of books.”

That got Koch a lot of laughs. But Koch had come to make a few points about politics and governance.

He said we are headed for an economic disaster from government overspending.

Republicans (along with Democrats) have created the coming crisis; Republicans are often the ones arguing to keep an unneeded military base and the money it brings into their constituencies, for example, he said.

Along with spending, mandates and regulations are damaging the economy, he said.

As with many of his recent interviews, he said corporate welfare (government money or tax breaks or other benefits handed to corporations) is creating a two-tiered society and creating “wealth for the wealthy.”

“We’ve got to stop this corporate welfare, got to stop poisoning the well for the disadvantaged,” he said.

He told how he and David run Koch Industries, hiring on the basis of character first rather than talent first.

Asked why they kept the company in Wichita, Charles Koch quoted John Adams, who signed the Declaration of Independence and became America’s second president.

“He said, ‘This is a system that will work only for moral people. It will work for no other.’

“And that is the way we view our philosophy. It works for moral people. That is why we hire first on values and second on talent. The worst thing for us is to have a very talented person with bad values. They will create more trouble than somebody who is evil.

“I can’t think of a better place to recruit and to support people who are trying to do the right thing and are moral. This has been the perfect place for it.

“And I don’t think – I mean there may be other places – but no place I know of where we would have been as successful as we have been.”

This story was originally published November 2, 2015 at 10:47 PM with the headline "Charles Koch acknowledges people’s frustration with government at chamber talk."