Marketplace talked with Charles Koch for an hour.  Here is a bit on the planned political spending:

Ryssdal: So if you feel that way, and if you’re spending, the Koch brothers writ large are spending so much money on politics, reports are $900 million dollars in the 2016-

Koch: No, but see, that’s totally wrong.

Ryssdal: Okay, what’s the number?

Koch: Okay, here’s the, and this is the budget, and it’s a projection of what the donors want to-

Ryssdal: Mm-hm (affirmative)

Koch: … give to. ‘Cause we say, “Okay, here are all the things that can be done that may or may not make a difference,” and our latest budget is going to be lower because people aren’t contributing-

Ryssdal: How much lower sir?

Koch: … as much. Probably the total budget over the two years I would guess would be 750, and the amount in politics is 250.

Ryssdal: In millions of dollars?

Koch: In millions of dollars.

Ryssdal: All right.

Koch: And as I said, very small portion of that 250 comes from the so-called Koch Brothers, and even less from me than from my brother because everybody can choose what they want to give to. So it isn’t the Koch brothers doing it. It’s other people doing it.

Ryssdal: You realize that comes across as sort of disingenuous, right?

Koch: In what way? It’s the truth.

Ryssdal: You organize seminars, you fund grass roots organizations.

Koch: Yeah.

Ryssdal: You have money in politics throughout the system, and for you to sit there and say, “I’m sorry, this isn’t really us,” doesn’t ring true and will not ring true when people hear this interview.

Koch: Okay, but here’s the thing.  If this wasn’t what people wanted, other people wanted to give to, the money wouldn’t come because we’re not putting it up. That’s, I mean you can say, yeah, we’ve improved the capability, because we say, “Okay, if you want to donate to these, we need to help make it more effective and to try to pick better candidates who will do a somewhat, maybe not go 70 miles an hour, and then hope there’s a few who will agree and actually try to change the trajectory of the country.”

Ryssdal: So what, how do you figure out your return on investment for the money that you and those who think like you invest in politics in America today? Because as you know, the electoral cycle this past couple of cycles has not been really kind to Republicans.

Koch: Well that’s not true. In the off years it has.

Ryssdal: Well s-

Koch: And-

Ryssdal: … sure, sure, but last time there was a race for the white house Carl Rove is the guy who stood up and said, “What are we doing? We’re wasting all this money.”

Koch: Yeah, noted.

Ryssdal: So how-

Koch: … a lot of it is waste, and I’ll give even-

Ryssdal: Okay.

Koch: … a stronger example to make your case-

Ryssdal: I appreciate that, thank you.

Koch: … that it’s a waste, and, and that is there, there’s a tax bill that comes up every year, it has 55 different subsidies called “extenders.”

Ryssdal: Must make you crazy.

Koch: And so we contributed to a bunch of the congress people’s campaigns, and so we wrote a letter to every congress person, “Please vote this down. This is a whole series of subsidies to things like making moves in an area, just one boondoggle after the other.”

Ryssdal: Mm-hm (affirmative)

Koch: “Please vote against this.” After all the Republicans, close to 250, only 46 voted against it. Okay, so this is an experiment, so we’re going to be looking harder at which Republicans we support, or Democrats, I’m happy to support d- We work with the white house on criminal justice reform.