Who Owns John Boehner? The Corporations That Love The Grim Weeper!

When the Koch Brothers call, it has been suggested that John Boehner will rush to pick up their dry cleaning or hurry to do the dirty dishes left in their sinks! The suggestion may not be far from the truth because Boehner and the Kochs have stood together through thick and thin.

John Boehner, GOP Speaker of the House, third in line for succession to the Presidency of the United States, is very financially fit! Boehner is a multi-millionaire who, according to his financial disclosure forms owns stock in BP, Conoco Philips, Occidental, Chevron, Exxon-Mobil and other familiar corporations. But he does not just wash dishes for the Kochs; it is suggested that he washes dishes for all of the wealthiest corporations nationwide!

Boehner owns shares in many corporations and thinks he is his own man, but the truth is that corporations own many shares of John Boehner.

Over the years, Boehner has received many millions of dollars from industry. For the next campaign, Boehner has already raised almost $8 million dollars from industry and their PACs. The average Congressman has picked up less than a million.

The top 20 industries that purchased shares of Boehner during the last campaign cycle (2009-2010 campaign season) are:

• Insurance $609,290 (who would a thunk it?)
• Securities & Investment $509,520 (nice!)
• Retired $394,649 (they must not need Medicare or Social Security)
• Electric Utilities $363,372 (NOT energy companies?)
• Lobbyists $353,814 (No Way!)
• Health Professionals $332,865 (They may want to protect their financial interests?)
• Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $329,350 (Think Boehner and Big Pharma want less regs?)
• Real Estate $285,400 (protect the mortgage companies?)
• Lawyers/Law Firms $264,050 (The ones that work for ALEC? policy or authors of laws?)
• Commercial Banks $237,750 (Think they want Boehner to come through on his promise to gut regulation and Consumer Protection?)
• Misc Manufacturing & Distributing $210,700 (again, Boehner supports the destruction of unions!)
• TV/Movies/Music $192,850 (someone help me on this one- no clue!)
• Republican/Conservative $187,345 (No surprise here!)
• Misc Finance $185,890 (gut Dodd-Frank!)
• Oil & Gas $184,650 (energy, again? Let's keep those subsidies!)
• Food & Beverage $170,825 (Coca-Cola also belongs to ALEC!)
• Retail Sales $169,700 (outlaw minimum wage?)
• General Contractors $144,450 (reduce regulations)
• Mining $135,450 (energy interests? Enough already!)
• Hospitals/Nursing Homes $133,350 (save our Medicare payments from being lowered)

These statistics are supplied by the Center For Responsive Politics. Items in parentheses added by this author for companies and/or lobbyists that you may be unfamiliar with.

Also according to The Center For Responsive Politics , Johnny's top twenty individual shareholders during the 2009-2010 campaign year were:

• AT&T Inc $87,300
• American Financial Group $81,400
• FirstEnergy Corp $62,800
• FMR Corp $50,450 (Fidelity Management and Research? a financial investments company?)
• Altria Group $48,025 (Philip Morris?)
• CME Group $47,650 (Derivatives, options and hedgefunds?)
• Blue Cross/Blue Shield $47,500
• Murray Energy $43,600
• Boehner for Speaker Cmte $36,000 (The only non-lobbying group in this list)
• Reynolds American $35,500
• Citigroup Inc $32,950
• General Electric $32,200
• Corinthian Colleges $31,750
• Akin, Gump et al $30,500 (policy lawyers for global companies)
• American Electric Power $28,750
• Credit Suisse Group $28,400 (international financial company)
• Bank of America $27,750
• Consumer Bankers Assn $27,400
• Energy Future Holdings Corp $27,172
• JPMorgan Chase & Co $25,750

These were NOT contributions by the companies, but rather the company PAC's, individual employees, lobbyists or owners of the companies. Items in parentheses added by this author for companies and lobbyists that you may be unfamiliar with.

Boehner and the Kochs have stood together through thick and thin.

Think Progress reported that on the day that the 112th Congress was sworn in on January 5, 2011, David Koch was there to meet and greet the Tea Party freshmen, the very freshmen that Charles and David Koch had spent millions to elect. Koch and his operatives also had a private meeting with John Boehner that same day.

"David Koch spent millions of dollars to make John Boehner the Speaker of the House and now Speaker Boehner is thanking him with a budget that protects taxpayer giveaways for Big Oil and tax breaks for the ultra rich paid for by ending Medicare," said Jesse Ferguson of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Speaker Boehner's priorities are clear: protecting Big Oil billionaires like David Koch at the expense of seniors. Big Oil and David Koch have no better friend than John Boehner."

Prior to becoming the Congressman from Ohio's 8th District in Washington, Boehner was a state representative serving in the Ohio State Legislature from 1985-1990. During that time, he was an active member of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. That may be where he was initially introduced to the Koch model of leadership, but his first meeting with the Kochs is undocumented. It is documented that he spoke at the ALEC national meeting in 2009, extolling the work and benefits of ALEC. The Koch brothers are key to ALEC's success, and Boehner is one of ALEC's tools.

ALEC, in just the past few years has promoted and helped to pass:

• Voter ID bills that seek to suppress voting.
• Bills that have destroyed collective bargaining rights in states such as Wisconsin and Michigan. ALEC stands behind laws that would decimate employee protections, worker's compensation, OSHA, and they seek to do away with the minimum wage and all unions.
• Bills that eliminate pension plans.
• The bills designed to overturn the Affordable Care Act. ALEC seeks an end to Medicaid protections offered in the states.
• The bills that do away with any environmental protections. ALEC has 15 such model bills. ALEC seeks the closure of the EPA.
• The bills that lower corporate taxes and increase taxes on the poor, middle class and seniors. In fact, to assist in this effort, ALEC has written the "State Budget Reform Tool Kit".
• The bills that strip education of funding and decimate local control of schools. ALEC seeks the closure of public schools by replacing them with corporate-owned schools that will have no public input.

This list of desired ALEC legislation includes prison reform designed to incarcerate more frequently and build additional private prisons, legislation designed to "protect innocent corporations from liability for asbestos poisoning", the marketing of pharmaceuticals with less regulation, as well as privatizing every sector of government.

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