North Carolina Treasury Secretary Dale Folwell Visits Eastern NC NOW | Eastern North Carolina Now

    But this culture and I'll wrap this up and take any follow-up question you might have. This culture starts with answering the telephones. Whether it's at the division of employment security, where I was just Secretary of Commerce, the state treasurer, North Carolina, or as the next governor. If people are going to work in any administration that I've been involved in, they have to answer their telephone. No one calls the state government to book a cruise. You call the state government because you have a situation you need help with, and if you can't answer your phones, that means you're not hearing from your customer. If you're not hearing from your customer, that means you don't know what the problem is. And if you don't know what the problem is, as a former motorcycle mechanic for the majority of my life, then how in the heck do you know what the problem is?

    That's the culture, and that's what we have brought, I have brought that to every agency that I've had responsibility for. Now, there's more that needs to be fixed: DMV; DOT; DHHS; Crime and Public Safety; the Board of Elections.

    There's all these cabinet level positions that report directly to the governor of North Carolina, which means for your listeners, that the governor of North Carolina is the CEO of the largest business in the state. The governor employs more people, buys more light bulbs, more paper towels, more truck tires, more diesel fuel than any other business person in the state. And, I'm a CPA and a candidate, who actually likes to fix, likes to govern and unlike my presumptive front runner in this race, I actually like math. And there is no gaps between my personal life, my campaign life, and my public service life.

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    Stan Deatherage:  So, in other words, what you're saying is if you think like an honest man, you act like an honest man, you speak as an honest man, you're going to have an honest department and you're going to run an honest state?


    Treasury Secretary  Dale Folwell:  I'm honored to be the keeper of the public purse, and by the way, this may be of interest to you. With everything is dividing our society these days, which is a political party and gender and race. None of that exists at the treasurer's office. We focus on the color green. And at the end of the day, all people want is someone who will attack problems and not attack people. I'm the first Republican treasurer elected since president Ulysses S Grant.


    Treasury Secretary  Dale Folwell:  And I'm the only Republican statewide, Republican elected officials who has received every newspaper endorsement, including newspapers like the Winston-Salem Chronicle, the Charlotte Post and received the endorsement of the state employees association, the first Republican to ever do that. And now I'm the first Republican to ever be recipient of the scenic endorsement as governor, but also more votes than Donald Trump has ever gotten in this state in the last two presidential elections. And that is what happens when you explain conservatism without offending people.

    We cannot be a party of hate. We have to be a party of hope. We cannot be a party of rage. We have to be a party of courage. And the word rage is inside the word courage and the COUR means from the heart. And we can't be a party who constantly has things come out of our mouth that tells half the population of this state, we don't want you or your vote or your ideas. And that's the type of governor I'll be. And that's the type of leader I'll be.

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    Stan Deatherage:  I appreciate that. We need that. Everybody gets taxed. Everybody's money goes into the same pot. It's there for everyone. And I appreciate that too. Often the governorship has been an authoritarian type arrangement. We saw what happened during COVID with authoritarian Cooper. I can't even call him governor anymore after those times. But you won't be that kind of governor, will you?


    Treasury Secretary  Dale Folwell:  Thank you for bringing that up because I'm the one who who fought to get our economy back open. Fought to tell the people like you how the council of state actually voted to shut down our economy. Fought to get the utilities and moratorium lifted. Because the governor told people they did not have to pay the utility bill, including you, by the way. But what he did not tell them in this world of government subsidies and forgiveness that we're not we're going to let you defer it. Not forgive it. And let me tell you the deferral happened, I believe, between April and June. And then you were going to be asked to pay it back for the remaining six months.

    I want to remind your listeners of what happens to their utility bills between June and September. They double. So for people like my mom, who may have been told she's not with us, who may have been told you don't have to pay your utility bill. Who would not have understood the difference between forgiveness and deferral. But we're going to tack this on to the next six months of your bills when your utility bill is going to double. That would have blown her up financially.

    And see, this is the lack of common sense. And the reason it happens, and I'm a Quaker, is that we need more talking in circles where we have to face people like I'm facing you this morning and get the information out and make the best decisions.

    The secretary of agriculture; it's reported that the industry he represents had to kill a million chickens; a million turkeys; a million small hogs. All because there was a decision made to shut down the restaurants and all the food distribution had 50% was going to restaurants, 50% to grocery stores. All of it had to find its way to grocery stores and we were not set up for that.

    And I'll say this, and I've been criticized for this. So I say it slowly and clearly. In my observation as a public servant, my observation is that I don't know of any person more responsible for more death, more disease, more illiteracy and more poverty than former secretary of DHHS Mandy Cohen.

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    Stan Deatherage:  Yeah, she's kind of big in the Biden administration right now. It kind of fits, doesn't it?


    Treasury Secretary   Dale Folwell:  Well, it does.

    But, the fact is, and there are two things that really chapped the governor during this whole process; and let me tell you, COVID is a serious issue. I had a blood oxygen level of 82 in intensive care in March of 20 before anybody knew what to do with people like me. Fortunately, before all these other protocols came out on the elevator, they gave me hydro-chloroquine and Z-pack before all these other protocols came out.

    And what really chaps the governor is simply this. Number one, if you can put 24 children on a school bus, why in the heck can you not put 10 of us in a 2000 square foot room to talk about the important issues of shutting down our schools, shutting down our farm economy, shutting down our businesses and all the other things that go on with the members of the council state. The second thing I think that chapped him is this, that the 16 year-olds at Chick-Fil-A, no matter how you feel about vaccines, the 16 year olds at Chick-fil-A could have done a better job of distributing this vaccine than Mandy Cohen did.

    Stan Deatherage:  Yeah, I'm a county commissioner here in Beaufort County. There were a lot of gaps. Let me go back to what you just said. Are you saying the council state did not meet in one big room together during all of this calamity?


    Treasury Secretary  Dale Folwell:  We met virtually. The meetings lasted an average of 21 minutes. There are 10 members of the council state. It took me five months to get a roll call vote about who voted how to shut down our economy and I'm one of the 10. So I know how I voted.

    My point of telling you that is the council of state did not operate during COVID under Robert's Rules of Order, nor did it operate in, to a level of degree or respect that the people of North Carolina deserved in such a highly uncertain time.