academic programs funded by Kochs; Mercatus Center; Richard Fink strategy; George Mason University

In the mid-1980s, as called for in the first phase of Fink's plan, the Kochs also began to establish an academic beachhead of their own. Their particular focus was on George Mason University, a little-known campus of Virginia's prestigious higher-education system, located in the Washington suburbs...By 1981, Fink had moved his Austrian economics program there from Rutgers, eventually naming it the Mercatus Center. ... Financial records show that the Koch family foundations donated some $30 million to the school, much of it going to the Mercatus Center. The Washington Post described Mercatus as a "staunchly anti-regulatory center funded largely by Koch Industries Inc." This, however, raised questions about whether the Marcatus Center was in fact an independent intellectual center or an extension of the Kochs' lobbying operation. Clayton Coppin, who taught history at George Mason and compiled the confidential study of Charles's political activities for Bill Koch, describes mercatus outright in his report as "a lobbying group disguised as a disinterested academic program." The arrangement, he points out, had financial advantages for the Kochs, because it enabled Charles "to have a tax deduction for financing a group, which for all practical purposes is a lobbying group for his corporate interest." (182-183)