Dale Folwell, my vote for North Carolina’s most interesting politician over the past eight years, leaves office a disappointed man.
Our state has had shrewd, ambitious state treasurers, including fiscal hawk Harlan Boyles and successors Richard Moore, now a leading N.C. banker, and Janet Cowell, Raleigh’s mayor.
Folwell is equally ambitious. The former Forsyth County state representative hoped to parlay eight years overseeing the state’s
$120 billion-plus pension assets and 750,000-member health plan
for state workers into the governorship.
Instead, he got outmaneuvered by skilled, influential political operators. He just calls them “cash.” Detractors say a know-it-all style and short term thinking on complex issues were also factors.
More than his predecessors, Folwell viewed the treasurer’s post as a bully pulpit on pressing issues in healthcare and financial services. His list of pulpit topics was long: rising healthcare costs; stunning CEO pay; expensive money managers; private equity abuses; inequitable drug prices; soaring medical debt; “woke” investment strategies; nonprofit-hospital tax advantages; and hospital consolidation.
In short, Folwell attacked healthcare executives and “finance bros” with a goal of fixing problems and cutting costs. That approach might work politically for a Democrat in liberal-leaning states, but it bombed for a grassroots North Carolina Republican.
Folwell agrees that he failed. “You either break the hospital cartel or you don’t. We didn’t,” he says. For that, he blames “counterfeit conservatives” who kowtow to industry lobbyists and favored Mark Robinson for the Republican Party nomination for governor.
He wouldn’t name names, but he clearly means the state’s most influential Republican leaders, Phil Berger, Tim Moore and former Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley. They watched as Robinson revved conservative support and secured Donald Trump’s endorsement before the March 2024 primary.
A personal opinion here: Virtually anyone who spent time with Robinson knew he would eventually bomb as a gubernatorial candidate. He was unprepared for a challenging job. Attorney General Josh Stein’s simple message — “I’m not Mark Robinson” — led to a 15 percentage point victory. That helped four Democrat candidates win Council of State seats by much thinner margins.
The Republican leaders showed no interest in backing Folwell, who received 100,000 more votes than Stein in the 2020 elections. Moore focused on getting to Congress; Berger showed continued mastery over the state’s legislative policies; and Whatley led Trump’s successful campaign. They all won.
Folwell was too hot to handle because of his unrelenting criticism of drugmakers, money managers and healthcare CEOs.
Did he ever really try to reach compromises with Moore and Berger? “I went when I was invited and I saw no result from that,” he says. “I worked really hard as a legislator to get Republicans into a majority, but my job was made harder because they didn’t do their job. I don’t tolerate counterfeit conservatives.”
The former treasurer says he never bent his ethical standards. “In 20 years of public service, I’ve never been in a black limousine or a private jet,” he says. “True public servants shouldn’t be in a position to profit, but we have a counterfeit conservatism in our state.”
Now, it’s arguable that Folwell failed at perhaps his most important task, managing the pension system. Many N.C. local public officials and financial industry experts, and the candidates who sought to succeed Folwell, say his strategies cost the system billions of dollars in potential gains. A distrust of PE funds and alternative investment vehicles and excessive cash holdings meant the state system underperformed most peers in recent years.
Folwell disagrees. His priority was preserving capital and limiting risk, not seeking volatile gains, he says.
The new treasurer, Brad Briner, has solid Wall Street investment credentials. The state’s returns should strengthen. On healthcare, he wants to lower the rhetoric and find sustainable ways to cut spending, aiding state employees and taxpayers.
That message didn’t impress Folwell. He didn’t endorse his Republican successor. ■
