Charles Koch: Welfare, food stamps ‘addictive’

Charles Koch, the businessman and major Republican donor, argues against food stamps and welfare in a new op-ed.

“Costly programs, such as paying able-bodied people not to work, are addictive disincentives,” Koch wrote in the Wednesday edition of USA Today. “By undermining people’s will to work, our government has created a culture of dependency and hopelessness.”

{mosads}Over the words “programs” and “able-bodied people,” he linked to articles about the disadvantages of food stamps and welfare.

“I agree with Dr. Martin Luther King,” Koch wrote in the next paragraph. “There are no dead-end jobs. Every job deserves our best. ‘If a man is called to be a street sweeper,’ King said, ‘he should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’ ” 

Koch and his brother David play a major role in campaign politics through groups such as Americans for Prosperity, which they founded. 

Democrats have sought to cast them as the villains of the election. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has focused on them in particular.