WICHITA — Mega-Billionaire Charles Koch, the man who hates government more than anybody, in an exclusive interview conducted by an errant solitary reporter, has agreed to fund a government building.
For months now, the Department of Veterans Affairs has been roiling in controversy over its new hospital in Aurora, Colorado. The campus is only half finished, and the latest estimate — $1.73 billion — is $1.1 billion above the budget awarded to contractor Kiewit-Turner when construction started more than three years ago.
Speaking with his characteristic bluntness, Koch said, “I know perfectly well, SR, that you Lefties love to pillory me, so I’m going to make the front page of the Denver Post, the New York Times, and all the other Lefty print media.”
“I’m worth $42 billion, and $1.1 billion means almost nothing to me, so I’m going to give that money to the VA so I can finish that hospital for our brave soldiers and sailors, if I can get a charitable deduction for it.”
“There are conditions, however.”
“Here at Koch Industries, in Kansas, we make a lot of high technology equipment for God and country, especially water-filtering equipment that will solve all the so-called problems of fracking. It’s expensive, but who cares how much it costs if it will shut up the radical environmentalists who keep complaining about trivial things like 585 earthquakes in Oklahoma last year supposedly caused by fracking.”
“Getting back to that VA hospital in Colorado. There has been a lot of talk in Colorado recently about oil and gas regulation.”
“So if I give that $1.1 billion to the Veterans Administration to finish their hospital, I don’t want to hear any whining from Lefties about fracking in Colorado or anyplace else.”
“Now go back to Colorado and straighten them out.”
The solitary reporter demurred and rode his bicycle back to Denver, leaving Koch fuming.
Write a comment