Obama’s “criticism can stimulate a lot of anger and dislike toward us,” David Koch said, “so there’s a huge security concern.”

The threat the Kochs fear most from the government is the potential for harassment by regulation.

“The government can shut our refineries down just by not letting us take an old heater and replace it with a more efficient heater,” Fink said. “You need a permit for that. They have the power to shut us down.”

The White House did not return calls seeking comment.

Fink said he warned the brothers that January day in 2009 about the perils of taking on the president and upsetting the special interests that fund the political system.

“I said that you guys will possibly risk the businesses that you have built and your family legacy, and there’s going to be a lot of fallback from this,” he said.

“They both of them said, ‘Absolutely not. We are committed. We believe it is the right thing to do. If we don’t save the country we are not going to have a company anyhow. So what’s the big difference?’ ”

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The Kochs believe the country is racing inevitably to economic disaster. They blame Republicans and Democrats alike.

They say that overspending, coupled with future shortfalls in Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, along with interest on the national debt, will push the country into bankruptcy, just as surely as a family that consistently spends more than it makes will end up broke.

“We’re running well over a trillion-dollar-a-year deficits with our national debt climbing inexorably to greater and greater level,” David Koch said. “The Federal Reserve, of course, is buying the bonds the federal government issues to finance the debt. And my God, if this continues to increase, we’re going to have ever-increasing inflation, it could become runaway inflation that would raise interest rates on our national debt enormously, and our country could spiral into bankruptcy.”

The interest alone that the United States will owe to China in 2025 is projected to be enough to fund that country’s entire military, Fink said.

The Kochs say neither Obama nor Romney will address overspending or expanding government.

“You go through history, the rate of increase in federal government has been almost the same under Republicans as under Democrats,” Charles Koch said. But he said that under Romney the country’s economic decline will proceed more slowly.

They also say that the country is threatened by cronyism, companies that would lobby for regulations to cripple their competitors or for subsidies rather than compete in the marketplace.

“Businesses, rather than focusing on finding what products and services will add value for people, will improve their quality of life, go to the government and get subsidies, mandates and other things, so the economy is no longer directed by individual consumers, but it’s directed politically,” Charles Koch said. “And we’ve seen what happens to societies that go there. And so that’s happening to this society.”

Although the Kochs have long complained about corporate subsidies, saying they increase taxes and the price of goods, the company accepts subsidies for production of ethanol. Not accepting them would put the company at a competitive disadvantage, they say.