Updated: Sep. 23, 2024, 9:49 a.m. |Published: Sep. 23, 2024, 9:36 a.m.
By Jocelyn Steinberg
Maybe you’ve seen the ad: A former hedge fund CEO accused of investing and profiting off Chinese fentanyl and outsourcing Pennsylvania clean energy jobs in the name of corporate greed. It’s so outrageous that you might want to write it off a September election year hyperbole. Except that you can’t. Because Dave McCormick’s recent statements and record - all available to the public - make it true.
I know because I made the ad, and my attorneys approved it as factually accurate.
Dave McCormick, the former CEO of Bridgewater is quite smart – of that I have no doubt. You don’t become the CEO of one of the country’s largest hedge funds as a fool. The question however is whether McCormick applied any of those smarts to do any good for Pennsylvania families, the people counting on him should he win the U.S. Senate seat in November.
Finance is a numbers game so let’s look at the numbers: In McCormick’s tenure (2017-2021) as CEO at Bridgewater, they managed roughly $162 billion in assets while charging exorbitant fees from Pennsylvanian state workers’ paychecks and Pennsylvanian taxpayers. In that time, he outsourced hundreds of jobs to China and invested over $1.7 million in Chinese-production of fentanyl.
It gets worse.
In his senate campaign, McCormick talks about why he wants to turn back and repeal major investments in Pennsylvania infrastructure, community, and families. That won’t help Pennsylvanians – but it will help China.
Let me remind Dave McCormick that when he was in Connecticut, in Pennsylvania, we had a highway collapse. That cost billions! Our energy grid needs upgrading so it keeps the lights on with more extreme weather that he is denying. Our schools need investment so we have a workforce that will continue to lead innovation. Our schools don’t need a hedge fund charging exorbitant rates on our teachers’ retirements. We need to invest in our infrastructure, communities, and families now.
McCormick’s stated goal of repealing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law would stop the two Pennsylvania Hydrogen Hubs now. It would block good union jobs and communities (and companies – since that’s what McCormick cares about) that are counting on those hubs for cleaner and reliable energy. It outsources those jobs to China – where they obviously will not enjoy the labor protections that we have here. Pennsylvania and the United States will lose its edge in energy exports.
McCormick’s repeals would also remove the $35 cap on insulin. It would raise energy prices. It will raise car prices. It will raise childhood asthma rates. Maybe if you travel by private jet, none of that matters – but it matters to at least 346,000 Pennsylvanians that are paying hundreds of dollars less for health care Marketplace premiums.
Pennsylvania is one of only four states that is a commonwealth. David McCormick thinks Pennsylvanians are too stupid and to have a concept of “commonwealth” and what that means. The truth is that Dave McCormick has no genuine understanding of what a commonwealth is because he has spent his career destroying the very idea of it. He has no vision of how to lead Pennsylvania because his only legacy has been how to line his own pockets at the expense of everyone else.
Infrastructure, energy resources, retirement security, public schools, public schools, jobs – these are all keys to our value of a common good – and that’s why Pennsylvania is a commonwealth – not a hedge fund asset to liquidate.
Jocelyn Steinberg is the Director of NRDC Action Votes, an independent expenditure an independent expenditure political committee that works to avert dangerous climate change, support healthy people and thriving communities, and conserve and protect nature and wildlife. She previously worked for the Pennsylvania State Treasury.