Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

by Jane Mayer

Within two months of Obama taking office, he recalled, the political environment had been transformed. “In January, we were working with the Republicans on an economic recovery package grounded firmly in centrist thinking,” he recalls. “The mainstream economic view was that the size of the calamity required massive economic spending. We asked the Republicans for their ideas. We were getting cooperation. Letters from all sorts of members of Congress were coming in with their heartfelt ideas. One high-ranking member of the House Republicans even suggested high-speed rail! But by early February, it started to shift. They were no longer sending letters. They were all expressing doubt about any kind of spending at all.” Senator DeMint, who was headlining the Kochs’ No Stimulus campaign, began a floor speech by proclaiming, “I like President Obama very much.” He then went on to call the stimulus bill “a trilliondollar socialist experiment” that was “the worst piece of economic legislation Congress has considered in a hundred years.” As Burton put it, “DeMint was saying ‘One-Term President’ within six weeks of Obama taking office.”