Kochs support free-market principles that benefit everybody; unions line specific pockets

A while back, LITD noted that the Koch brothers only ranked 59th in the list of high-roller donors to political activist groups.

In the WSJ today, Kim Strassel notes that there were a whole lot of labor unions higher on the list than they were.  They generally don't operate at the level of promulgating general principles they stand for.  With them, it's a more a matter of paying for specified goodies:

As for Mr. Reid's complaint that some "rig the system to benefit themselves," that was undoubtedly a reference to the overt, transactional nature of union money. Nobody doubts the Kochs and many corporations support candidates who they hope will push for free-market principles. Though imagine the political outcry if David or Charles Koch openly conditioned dollars for a politician on policies to benefit Koch Industries?

In the past months alone, unions demanded an exemption to a tax under ObamaCare; the administration gave it. They demanded an end to plans to "fast track" trade deals; Mr. Reid killed it. They wanted more money for union job training; President Obama put it in his budget. Everybody understands—the press matter-of-fact reports it—that these policy giveaways are to ensure unions open their coffers to help Mr. Reid keep the Senate in November. The quid pro quo is even more explicit and self-serving at the state level, where public-sector unions elect politicians who promise to pay them more. If the CEO of Exxon tried this, the Justice Department would come knocking. The unions do it daily.

Democrats hope to make a campaign theme out of conservative "dark" money, something else Mr. Reid knows about. In addition to other spending, unions have been aggressively funneling money into their own "dark" groups. One of these is the heavyweight 501(c)(4) Patriot Majority USA. Patriot Majority doesn't disclose its donors, though a Huffington Post investigation found it had been "fueled" in 2012 by $2.3 million in union donations. Amusingly, Patriot Majority used its undisclosed money on a campaign to expose the Koch brothers' "front" groups. Oh, and Patriot Majority is run by Craig Varoga, a former aide and close ally of . . . Harry Reid.

The unions have had a special interest in funding attacks on conservative groups, since it has led to the IRS's regulatory muzzling of 501(c)(4) speech. Under the new rule, conservative 501(c)(4)s are restricted in candidate support; unions can do what they want. Conservative groups are stymied in get-out-the-vote campaigns; unions can continue theirs. Conservative outfits must count up volunteer hours; not unions.

And just who are these brothers that FHers, including now Harry Reid, would have us demonize?  As Charles C. W. Cooke points out at NRO, they qualify far more as libertarians than they do as conservatives:

Certainly, the pair vehemently opposes the Democratic party’s core economic agenda, which, in the waning days of Obama’s influence, consists of defending Obamacare, instituting a carbon tax, and refusing steadfastly to do anything about the federal government’s spending problem. But the Kochs are not as simple as the hysteria would have them be. Indeed, even the lightest of research reveals them to be in favor of gay marriage, of drug legalization, of reforming and expanding the immigration system, of withdrawing troops from the Middle East, of cutting defense spending, of curbing the NSA’s overreach, and of helping to balance the budget by raising (some) taxes — all of which, it presumably doesn’t need spelling out, are positions that the Democratic party purports to support. Among the “shadowy” groups to which the Kochs have contributed are the ACLU (which received $20 million from the duo to support its work against the PATRIOT Act), a variety of cancer-research foundations, and a wide range of museums, musical venues, and art galleries.

Just remember that when the Freedom-Haters try to make villains of our champions,  we have truth on our side.