On Koch Supported Herman Cain

by Robert Wenzel
Economic Policy Journal

Recently by Robert Wenzel: Understanding Power and Influence Players

I've noticed that Herman Cain, who is already an announced candidate for president, seems to have a close association with the Koch brothers. He attended the recent Koch conference in Rancho Mirage and he has been a speaker at the Koch-funded rightonline.

I have seen clips of him speak, but never anything of substance. He sure can deliver a speech though (see below). So I was excited to see that he was going to appear on Eliot Spitzer's CNN show last night. True to form he gave one hell of a performance. Lot's of talk about cutting government down to size (all generalities though), and he threw out the fact that he was a former exec at Pillsbury and CEO of Godfather's Pizza for 10 years. But then Spitzer zeroed in. He asked Cain about the war in Iraq. Cain said he supported it because, get this, Saddam was using weapons of mass destruction against his own people. Cain also said that he was in favor of food stamps (Though the program needs to cut out fraud). It also sounds like Cain is in favor of some kind of "fair tax", whatever that is.

And, oh yeah, he's a former chairman (1995-96) and deputy chairman (1992-94) of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

What the hell are the Koch brothers thinking?

When you compare Ron Paul to Herman Cain, the choice is obvious. Congressman Paul says, let's start by bringing U.S. troops home from overseas to help reduce the budget deficit and shift priorities to Americans. He is like that on every issue. He is always about details and specifics. He doesn't talk in generalities such as "Well I'm a great manager", like Cain does. Everybody says that, from Mitt Romney to Rudy Giuliani. Who needs more of that?

Congressman Paul is also more principled. You would never see Congressman Paul, as a libertarian, ever say that the food stamp program is a good program. And it appears he has a different view about the Fed, then does the former Fed insider Cain.

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March 2, 2011

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