This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2010, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The tea party movement is no grass-roots movement. Finally ,the truth is coming out.
In 1984, through their Koch Foundation, oil billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch founded Citizens for a Sound Economy, which in 2003 became FreedomWorks. The Koch brothers then hired Dick Armey (former Republican majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatitves) to chair FreedomWorks with the goal of training and supporting tea party patriot organizers.
The Koch brothers are not the only billionaires who support tea party groups; other billionaires include fellow oilmen Robert Rowling and Trever Rees-Jones, and Rupert Murdoch through Fox News.
They all have the same agenda: Use uninformed Americans as a front for an organized, corporate-created, outraged, populist, anti-government movement that will reduce corporate regulations and corporate taxes. Which in the process will destroy the American middle class by shipping more jobs overseas, lowering wages and benefits, and, in the end, eliminating pensions, health care, Social Security and Medicare.
Catherine Legge
Wanship