PA SENATOR DAVE MCCORMICK HELD A TELE-TOWN HALL: IT WAS NOT ENLIGHTENING! (1 OF 2)

The Town Hall Transcript and Our Comments, Questions and Facts!

On Wednesday, April 9, Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Dave McCormick held a tele-town hall for his constituents. The event lasted about an hour and allowed time for a dozen questions from what the Senator estimated was 7-8,000 callers. Senator McCormick thoughtfully announced the April 9 tele-town hall on his Facebook page 24-hours before the event. The last time he held one, the advance notice was a half-hour.

I was one of those callers and I took the time to record and transcribe what transpired. In a moment, I will provide a slightly edited (for clarity) copy of that transcript (Removing lots of the vagaries of actual speech like uhs, ahs and “you knows”.) In so doing, I am also providing my own responses to issues which the Senator never addressed, glossed over, or in some cases, was less than truthful.

NOTE: Because of the sheer length of the town hall transcript and my responses, I am dividing this full post into two sections. We hope you will find the two edifying and informative.

The format followed is segments of the transcript, interspersed with my own comments, posted in bold italic for reference. Questions asked by participants are indented.

While most of the questions asked were substantive and important, the format was simply not conducive to a detailed discussion of the issues involved. It did not allow questioners to challenge some of the assertions made by the Senator, ask for clarification or challenge the validity of his “facts.”

Participants were invited to press keys to indicate they wanted to ask a question. I did so and a few minutes in, had someone ask me if I wanted to do so. I said I did, and was asked my name, where I lived, and the nature of my question. I told him it concerned the future of Social Security. He said “you are in the queue,” but did not indicate where. I never got to ask my question, although the subject was brought up by those whose questions were accepted.

One issue that raises questions about the potential bias of selection in this event is the location of the dozen questioners chosen. Curiously, there was a clear preference for callers from smaller, often rural communities that are the heart of the Republican base in PA:

1. Erie: Approximately 94,831

2. York: Approximately 44,867 (three callers)

3. Williamsport: Approximately 27,470

4. Indiana: Approximately 14,044 residents

5. Mechanicsburg: Approximately 9,540 residents

6. Malvern: Approximately 3,429 residents

7. Manchester: Approximately 2,798 residents

8. Morgantown: Approximately 1,530 residents

The other caller listed simply “Cumberland County”, a Republican-leaning entity. No questions were asked by voters in any of the state’s larger cities and towns including Pittsburgh, Harrisburg or Philadelphia.

I will give the Senator credit. The program was very slick and smooth with no histrionics or outbursts. But this format is also a way to block evidence of the mounting and increasingly seething anger at politicians, primarily Republicans, who refuse to hold open public sessions with their constituents.

Those who have held in-person town halls should be applauded for having the courage to do so. But when they do, that anger, fear and frustration is absolutely clear. Some, like Senator McCormick, have chosen instead the tele-town hall approach to avoid such challenges. The format does not follow-up questions or challenges to the Senator’s positions, many of which, frankly, clash with reality - as I will note.

In his commentary, the Senator said he holds “weekly coffees,” apparently at his offices in D.C. He also references his regional offices across Pennsylvania. How people gain access to the coffees and how much screening there is to attend them is not clear.

Many of the Senator’s constituents report trying to visit regional offices, only to be told that (a) nobody is there to meet them, (b) they have to fill out a request to get an appointment or (c) they should call, only to get no answer.

Senator McCormick and his PA colleague Democratic Senator John Fetterman have both been less than eager to hold actual in-person town halls. At one point last month, it appeared the two of them would hold a joint public event, but that was quickly scrapped due to “scheduling difficulties.

Pittsburgh Public Radio’s WESA reported the facts behind the cancellation:

Fetterman and McCormick have faced pressure from constituents to hold public town halls, as the federal government makes rapid changes to social safety net programs and federal spending. Tensions have escalated at town hall events across the country in recent weeks, with Republicans in particular facing outrage from constituents angry about the Trump administration’s policies.

McCormick was set to host an event centered on youth mentorship alongside his wife Dina to celebrate their book “Who Believed in You?” at a wine bar in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. Tickets were $32 and came with a copy of the book. When it was publicized that Fetterman and his wife Gisele would be joining, progressive groups announced plans to protest outside.

Protesters said calls to their representatives have gone unanswered for weeks and those who received emailed responses said they did not inspire confidence. Neither senator responded to a WESA request for comment Saturday.

Some of those who turned up on the lawn of Schenley Plaza Saturday said they bought tickets to McCormick’s event just to get in front of the senator. Among them was retired naval officer Bob Heister.

“I should be able to meet with them for free, but I had to pay 30-some-odd dollars to meet with them,” he said. “I urge both of these guys to rescind their cancellation and to reschedule. And in addition to that, to hold town halls.”

One has to admire Senator McCormick’s chutzpa in shilling a book on “mentorship” less than 90 days into his six-year term, especially given statements from former employees that he ignored charges of toxic sexual harassment at the Bridgewater Hedge Fund he ran before his entry into PA politics.

One could even more question Senator Fetterman’s willingness to ignore calls for in-person town halls with his constituents while agreeing to partner with McCormick to shill his book and require those planning to attend the event to pay to get in and get a copy. Add to this the optics of holding an event for constituents in a wine bar.

The folks who want to talk about potential cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits, healthcare, education, public broadcasting, Head Start, foreign aid, national security, foreign alliances, the rule of law, a runaway Supreme Court and more want their senators and representatives to show up in venues large enough for everyone to attend...obviously not a wine bar in the Strip District. Even less do they want to pay for the privilege and the dubious honor of getting a copy of a book with little relevance to their fears and demands for facts.

In winning his first term, Senator Fetterman’s campaign strategy included ventures into deep red parts of the state. By reaching across the aisle and showing his understanding of their valid concerns, he was able to peel away enough red votes to carve out a victory.

Today however, there is no “aisle” to reach across. The other side of that aisle now consists of what was once a political party and is now a cult with total fealty to President Trump. It is a cult hell-bent to institute a sweeping set of changes to America that are deeply unpopular. It is not a group that can be negotiated with.

Only when the results of their agenda become so toxic that they cannot be ignored (things like pending collapses of financial markets or discovering that they just fired the people who preserve the security of our nuclear arsenal) do they have to pull back and even then we find that, in many cases, those pledges to restore funding or staff are not honored.

Meanwhile, the President and his team continue to aggressively pursue their Project 2025 goal of gutting agencies, removing guardrails to counter election interference, corruption, foreign influence, assure our public health and safety, while pushing for passage of a gigantic tax break for the wealthy .

Senator Fetterman’s desire to maintain a spirit of bipartisanship is admirable under normal circumstances. That is how our democracy is supposed to work. In today’s climate however, it is simply not reality.

With that background, let us jump into the transcript of the Wednesday night McCormick tele-event and with it, our commentary:

APRIL 9 TELE-TOWN HALL WITH SEN. MCCORMICK - PART ONE OF TWO

Good evening everybody. It's Dave McCormick. Thank you for joining this call. This is a new tradition we're going to start to do on a fairly regular basis just as an opportunity to reach out and have inbound and reach out to constituents across our Commonwealth and hopefully be able to answer your questions and tell you a little bit about what's going on.

There's a lot going on at the moment and lots of questions and so this is meant to try to address that. I'm going to start with an overview on what's going on. I'm then going to turn to questions, and we'll just keep going through questions coming from all of you in the rest of the call and I'll try to do as many questions as I can. I (may have to) step out to vote. If I do that, I'll let you know in advance, and we'll finish probably a little bit before eight.

So listen, I've been in the Senate about 90 days, and I've done my best to hit the ground running on putting Pennsylvania first - putting President Trump's agenda first. And really the things I ran on, I made a very explicit set of promises during the campaign and those are

rebuilding the economy,

restoring America's role in the world,

confronting China,

supporting allies in the Middle east,

unlocking energy,

so forth and so on. I could go on.

And what's exciting is I think we're off to a fast start and I think there's a lot to be optimistic about. I've been all over Pennsylvania. I try to be back in the Commonwealth every single weekend, including this past week in Pittsburgh where I met with a local fire fighters union and I visited a really cool innovative energy company which is creating batteries from domestic materials and not dependent on lithium, which many of the batteries that we currently use depend on.

I've heard from many of you (about the) issues you're most concerned about. And some of those include the cost of living, unleashing Pennsylvania energy, having a stronger border, and the fentanyl crisis. These were also key issues that were raised in the campaign. The last few months have been a lot of firsts.

Obviously, I'm new to Washington and new to elected office. So, my first vote in the Senate was the Laken Riley act. And that delivered on one of the top promises - to secure the border and ensure criminals like those who killed Laken Riley could no longer be free in this country to wreak havoc on innocent people and American families. And President Trump signed that bill into law, and it's already being implemented across the country, which is great.

OUR COMMENTS: What happened to Ms. Riley was a tragedy. The fact that her murder was committed by an immigrant added to it. But the Republicans have consistently used immigrants as a blunt cudgel - using events like her murder to try and paint all immigrants as vicious gang members or consumers of dogs and cats.:

· They have, of late, been touting how much illegal border crossings have dropped since Trump took office. This ignores the fact that the biggest drop occurred due to executive orders from President Biden. Those were issued after the GOP sabotaged their own negotiated agreement, crafted by OK Senator Jim Lankford at the request of Majority Leader McConnell…because candidate Trump ordered them to do so. Virtually every expert on the long tortured effort to draft a comprehensive immigration measure has called the Lankford bill the most comprehensive ever proposed to Congress and one that Democrats were ready to agree on, even given their concerns about how it would be implemented.

· Republicans have repeatedly tried to link immigrants to increased crime rates in America. In fact, the crime rate among immigrants is actually lower than that in the general population and the U.S. crime rate overall has fallen across the nation in recent years.

My first visit back to Pennsylvania was to the farm show in Harrisburg. Agriculture is the largest industry in Pennsylvania, which is critical. it's critical that the policies from Washington enable, not hurt our farm sector. I've introduced the whole Milk for Healthy Kids act, which is a bipartisan, bicameral, meaning it includes the Senate and the House group of supporters to get whole milk back in our schools.

I've also met with farmers in D.C. and in Lancaster to work to combat bird flu, which has really ravaged Pennsylvania's chicken flock. And I've worked with Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins and also the Pennsylvania Ag Secretary, in addition to many colleagues in Congress, including our ag chair, G.T. Thompson from Pennsylvania, to help make sure our ag industry across our great commonwealth thrives.

OUR COMMENTS: Senator McCormick’s stated commitment to Pennsylvania’s important farm sector is admirable, but hardly buttressed by his own actions and those of his party:

· One of the first acts of the Trump administration was to stiff farmers across the country who had applied for funds to improve productivity, protect the environment and open new markets for their products. In many cases, the farmers had already spent their own funds for the work, only to learn they would not be reimbursed. Some of the cuts have since been rescinded but the overall status of the grant program remains in limbo.

· The administration’s push to deport literally millions of immigrants is particularly damaging to the nation’s farmers and food processors who rely heavily on immigrants to do work most Americans have shown they will not do. That is true here in Pennsylvania. A detailed look at how mass deportations would impact many important sector of the U.S. economy is found in our Oct. 21, 2024 post.

· Senator McCormick states that one of his prime goals is to “unlock” energy…particularly Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry by “removing troublesome regulations.” But pushing still more reliance on carbon fuels carries with it increasing risks to our planet in the form of global warming. Those changes are a real threat to farmers worldwide and to our plant as a whole.

· Pennsylvania alone already has a legacy of literally thousands…some say hundreds of thousands of old wells that are leaking methane into the atmosphere. Pennsylvania has enabled/allowed most drillers to evade responsibility for capping them once they are shut down. State and federal taxpayers have been footing the bill to do that in the face of trying to even locate many of them. At the same time, it has refused to tax the industry – a loss of badly needed funds that could have helped address the problem and/or paid for state programs like public education which have been badly underfunded.

· The Trump administration has sought to dismantle federal climate regulations. Now it is threatening state efforts as well.

· The President has gutted USAID food surplus programs to address world hunger and cut school lunch and other programs that provide additional markets for farmers.

· NONE of this will benefit PA farmers, the state or the globe.

My first bill that I introduced is the Joint Task Force to Counter Illicit Synthetic Narcotics. This is to stop the scourge of fentanyl. For those of you that followed my campaign, I talked about fentanyl in every single campaign stop because it killed 4,000 Pennsylvanians last year.

It's just hard to believe. The bill is bipartisan and bicameral. And my fellow co-sponsor is Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman. He's an original co-sponsor, and I was really glad and honored to have his support for this first piece of legislation. This bill would improve federal coordination to combat the terrible crisis of fentanyl.

It goes after trafficking organizations. It responds to China's central role in producing fentanyl precursors, which are the ingredients to go into fentanyl, and laundering drug money. So, this bill is meant to really raise the level of support against this crisis and save American lives.

Finally, I'm working to lower energy prices and create good energy jobs later this year. I did a big speech …in front of the building trades here in Washington, which had about 5,000 people. And I told them about an event I'm going to host in Pennsylvania, the Energy and Innovation Summit, which will be in Pittsburgh.

And that's going to bring together top leaders in energy and artificial intelligence alongside large global investors to deliver on President Trump promise to unleash American energy, dominate in artificial intelligence and really bring energy production back home, particularly to Pennsylvania. A couple things, and then I'll turn to questions.

I'm also working to support families and their access to school choice. This is something that I campaigned on …. we already have school choice in our country, unfortunately, which is that rich people are able to send their kids wherever they want. But really making sure every child has the opportunity for a school that best suits them is the reason I co-sponsored the Education Choice for Children Act.

OUR COMMENTS: If Senator McCormick really believes in “School Choice” he might want to examine what has happened here in Pennsylvania on that issue.

· Over the past decade and a half, our Legislature has steadily required that public schools turn over more and more of their own tax base to charter schools across the state. (In my home community, that amount has grown from $100,000 to $4.5 million over that time period.)

· What the state did NOT do over that time was demand full accountability for how those funds were being used by PA charter schools, especially cyber-charters. There were no peer-reviewed studies of how well charter schools stacked up against public schools in terms of outcomes. There was no real review of how those public tax funds were being spent by charters.

· Why did this happen? First, PA has no limit and gifts to legislators. Second, one of the largest lobbies in PA today is charter schools with literally millions of dollars over the years flowing to legislators, particularly from billionaire Jeffrey Yass, a major investor in charter schools.

· Recently, however, State Auditor General Tim Defoor (a Republican) issued a detailed and scathing report on some of the industry’s excesses. Among his findings:

o The state’s five largest charter schools, over the past four years alone, have amassed reserves of over $600 million in taxpayer funds.

o Substantial portions of those funds have been invested in real estate even though the schools have no bricks and mortar facilities.

o 93% of the state’s 500 public school districts petitioned the legislature to look at the formula that allowed this to happen and have been doing so for years. Leadership of the legislature which thrives on donations from the lobby, have never allowed that to happen.

o Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro has proposed a cap on per-capita taxpayer funding of charter students at $8,000 which would save local schools nearly $380 million per year. That measure has been stalled in the PA Senate which, Senator McCormick, is controlled by your party.

o Meanwhile the state lost a lengthy court battle which found it was not fairly and equally funding public education in the state. By some estimates, rectifying the shortfall could cost the state up to $4 billion.

o The legislature last session began increased funding to respond to the court’s findings. Now however, Republicans are pushing back against continuing the process for fear of a budget shortfall. The same Republicans who have never levied an extraction tax on the billions of dollars generated by the state’s carbon fuel industry.

I'm working hard to support Israel and stand up against anti Semitism. I've strongly and consistently advocated for the immediate return of Israeli hostages in Gaza. I pushed back on anti Semitism at home and abroad and supported our greatest ally in the Middle East, Israel, through meetings with key leaders, strong public statements, and committee activity.

Just this last week, I had a number of the recently released hostages, to include Ksenia Karelina who just came out of captivity after 498 days in captivity. Horrible. We need to bring those hostages home.

And finally, probably the best day I've had since I've been in the Senate. I worked with President Trump and Secretary Rubio to help get Pennsylvania Mark Fogel home safely from Russia, where he was held captive for three-and-a-half years. Probably my best day so far in the Senate was to be at the White House when Mark Fogel arrived his first day on American soil after that long period in Russian prison.

OUR COMMENTS: We all celebrate whenever our citizens are freed from captivity after being illegally held by foreign nations and the case of Mark Fogel is an especially egregious one. Near the end of his term, President Biden was able to win freedom for 16 Russian-held hostages including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Marine veteran Paul Whelan. Biden tried mightily to free Fogel as well, but Russian leader Vladimir Putin refused.

Putin has routinely used illegally-detained citizens from around the world as bargaining chips and a tool to reward spies, arms merchants and assassins who have done his bidding by winning their freedom.

Again, it is great that Fogel did get freed, but the timing of the release was entirely Putin’s and most likely done to favor his clear and close ally Donald Trump. Putin continues to hold at least a half dozen foreign nationals as future pawns.

This is just a very short list of the many challenges I'm trying to take the lead on in fighting for Pennsylvanians and making sure… I stay very aligned to all the promises I made on the campaign trail.

I've got great (Senate) committee (assignments) to do that. I'm on the Foreign Relations Committee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Banking Committee, which, among other things, deals with affordable housing. The Committee on Aging, which Senator Casey was on. I have senior, position on that, and the Joint Economic Task Force.

And… I really think I'm in a strong position to deliver on my promises to Pennsylvania. I look forward to hearing from as many of you as I can during this tele town hall. I want to thank you for coming.

Okay. the first question I have is from Reagan. from Williamsport. Would you like to ask your question, please?

First of all, thank you for taking my question. I'm really concerned about DOGE and privacy with my personal information. I keep hearing people joke half seriously that Elon Musk can now see our Social Security numbers. And honestly, I'm starting to wonder if it's more than just a meme, because it really sounds like Elon and DOGE have been given sweeping access to federal databases with information that, honestly, like, I wouldn't even share with my best friend. So, I guess my question is, like, what is actually going with DOGE? Can Elon Musk really see my Social Security number?

Yeah. It's a good question. Let me try to answer on DOGE to start with what I think is going on in general. And let me try to answer your question about data privacy. So, one of the things that is unfortunate about the moment we're in is that,,government spending is truly out of control.

And it's really the fault of Republicans and Democrats over the last 20 years. We have $37 trillion of debt, about a trillion dollars of interest payments alone, and $2 trillion of deficit spending. So, what DOGE is trying to do is help rein in that spending. Look at the areas where we have wasteful spending, waste fraud and abuse, and rein in the bureaucracy.

Because in many ways, the bureaucracy has a mind of its own in terms of the way it's spending the taxpayer money. Some of the things that come out of DOGE, I think, show us that those spending priorities are very much out of line with what most Americans and most Pennsylvanians would do.

OUR COMMENTS: First, the “bureaucracy” does not have a “mind of its own.” Republicans view the bureaucracy as a malign presence. In truth their task is to implement the expenditures and the policies set by Congress and to assure that they do so according to the law and regulations.

Mr. McCormick is correct in his figures on the national debt, and yes, both Republicans and Democrats have contributed to it. BUT, during Trump’s first term he passed a budget bill that ballooned that figure by nearly $8 trillion alone.

· That’s nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student loans, car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt other than mortgages, combined, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.

· And today, he and the GOP are pushing forward a bill that, according the conservative Pete Peterson Foundation, would add another $9 trillion to that figure. If that goes through, the debt figure would rise to $48 trillion and $17 trillion of that (THIRTY FIVE PERCENT) would be linked to Trump alone.

· The GOP mantra, year after year and decade after decade has been “We have to do something about the debt.” Invariably however, when they take power, the ‘something” they do is increase that debt….on steroids… in order to give their rich backers massive tax cuts - adding to their existing millions and billion. Meanwhile, programs and agencies that would help Senator McCormick’s constituents are being systematically gutted.

So that's why this effort's underway. DOGE doesn't have any decision-making authority. They don't decide what happens. They give the information to President Trump and his Cabinet, and they have responsibility for implementing whatever cost reductions or changes…There's two things I want to say about DOGE, and then I'll turn to the privacy question.

Number one, when you're moving that fast and trying to identify big cost savings in a radical way, you're going to make mistakes. And Elon Musk was up at the Capitol a couple weeks ago and we talked about this because they've made some mistakes of things that they've said should be cut, which in retrospect shouldn't have been.

It's going to happen when you're making big changes. A good example was in the Department of Agriculture. they made some cuts of people who were bird flu experts when were in the middle of a bird flu crisis. So that was dumb. And they went and hired those folks back.

The second thing I want to say about DOGE - The federal workforce has grown dramatically. 400,000 additional people just in the last four years. We're going to have to downsize that federal workforce, reduce the size of it, eliminate a bunch of positions. But when we do that, we need to treat those people respectfully, thank them for their service.

They have been supporting all of us, even though, sadly, we need to get rid of those positions. So, I think it's important we treat them with respect with regard to data privacy. There are very specific laws associated with that.

A number of treasury officials testified up on Capitol Hill, and they said very clearly under oath that Elon Musk and the DOGE team, those that weren't federal employees, that had appropriate access, were not given access…to your personal information.

And so, listen, that's a question and a concern that's been asked by a number of people in Capitol Hill… in the Senate, not just Democrats, Democrats and Republicans. It's a legitimate concern because your data privacy is something that should be protected, and we've been assured that it has been protected.

And that's the kind of question we'll continue to ask, but as of this moment, I have no reason to believe it's not. And as I said, key, people have testified under the data protections that we all hold so dear that personal privacy has been protected.

OUR COMMENTS: Senator McCormick – with all due respect, you and your colleagues have been lied to by this administration – by top officials, by candidates for high office supposedly testifying under oath. We were told that DOGE staff had only read access to sensitive government databases. They actually had write access as well. Attorney General candidate Pam Bondi swore under oath that the Department of Justice would not use its powers to pursue prosecutions of political opponents. Since her confirmation (which you voted for) that seems to be her primary role. Bottom line, your belief in the assurances you say you were given is clearly misplaced and dangerous to us all.

There has been NO independent supervision of DOGE hackers and their work. We have no idea whether Elon Musk and his team have made copies of every database they have accessed for their own use. We have no idea if they have installed viruses or code that bars access to the database by real experts.

You state DOGE has no decision-making ability as far as budgets and programs, but their “findings” are rapidly used to justify those cuts. In far too many cases, we discover that the “facts” supplied by DOGE are lies…and that even when disproven, are repeated over and over by Musk, Trump and many GOP legislators. (We are NOT paying Social Security benefits to 150 year olds)

Reagan from Williamsport has every reason to be worried about the security of her private information and so does every American.

Okay, next question. Amy from Indiana, PA,

Well, I am 42, and due to some life events, I'm not as far on planning for my retirement as I would like to be with my 401k. And my question is, do you have any, advice or comfort, to offer when we're watching sort of those numbers just plummet. And how can I support the tariffs and Trump's agenda… when I'm also… holding this other issue in my hand?

I get it. And I want to say …my dad's 87 and he has a 401k. And…he and I had a similar conversation yesterday. So, I feel what you're saying,. It's hard to watch the volatility in the markets. Let me see a comment on, the tariffs and then let me say a comment on your 401k.

On the tariffs. I'd say three things. Number one, I think it's important for everybody to recognize that the tariffs are just one part of a broader economic plan that President Trump promised. And I campaigned on this too, which is deregulation - make it easier for businesses to do business, particularly small businesses, which add jobs to our economy.

Second, there's an energy revolution…which is going to lower the price of fuel and create great jobs (for) Pennsylvania. Three, there's all this foreign investment coming in to build data centers and manufacturing. And four, I believe it's not for certain, but I think there's a high probability that Congress will move forward on the tax cuts in this Congress to make sure your taxes don't get raised.

OUR COMMENTS: It would be wonderful if “all this foreign investment” was coming in. In truth, our economy has been so savaged so quickly by the President’s blunt force tariffs that investors have even begun abandoning US bonds and the dollar, even as stock prices plunge.

We hear constantly that the Trump tariffs will bring a flood of foreign investment into the U.S. to build new facilities, but even if that were true (and it is not under the current circumstances) it would take literally years for many of these facilities to be built. In truth, there is such a climate of uncertainty in the U.S. economy right now that no prudent investor would risk committing to the costs of a major project like building a new factory or any other large-scale project.

And while we may love that “our taxes don’t get raised,” the factor Senator McCormick doesn’t mention is that the real force behind the GOP’s pending budget bill is massively lowering taxes on millionaires and billionaires. Do not be surprised if a very wealthy Senator McCormick votes for that bill if it reaches the Senate. As noted, if passed, it would add $9 TRILLION to the national debt.

Finally Senator, what IS the Trump tariff strategy? What sectors of investment do we, as Americans, want to encourage? Should not tariffs be targeted to achieve stated goals? What are those goals and where is the strategy and plan in a tariff package so clumsily crafted that it imposes tariffs on EVERY part of the globe including uninhabited islands occupied only by penguins?

So those are four things that should give people who watch the economy confidence. The tariffs are designed to fix a problem, which is the global trading system is not entirely fair. China and many other countries have taken advantage of the United States. And that's why a lot of these small towns like Indiana and Bloomsburg, where I grew up. When I grew up, there was a carpet mill with 2,000 employees, and now it's got 200.

That's part of the reason - the unfair trading practices of China and elsewhere. So, the tariffs were designed to try to fix that imbalance and make sure manufacturing (will) be much more competitive in the United States. And so that's why I've supported reciprocal tariffs with the idea of creating fairness and opportunity for Pennsylvania.

But there's a lot of uncertainty around that right now. President Trump gave some more certainty today (Wed. Apr. 9) with his announcement. I'm hoping in the coming weeks he'll do a number more deals which will show everybody how the new trade is going to be much more. But that's a little bit what you're seeing in the markets is…uncertainty and they don't like uncertainty.

And if you're someone with a 401k, you watch the stock prices go up and down and it affects how much you're going to have for retirement. But I guess a couple things: I understand that's a concern, but if you look at what's happened over the last 10 years and last 5 years, everybody's 401k has gone up much more than it historically has.

So, the performance over the last 10 years has been really good. And even if you look at this year… you're up a couple points from what it was a year ago. So even though it's gone up and just today it's gone up again.

OUR COMMENTS: One need only look at the financial market in the past week to see that these reassurances are hollow. Economists worry that the damage being inflicted on our financial system by the Trump tariff scheme could create a downturn that lasts for years.

With the bond market under severe stress, even as stocks fall, the cost of everything is going to go up from credit cards to mortgage rates. A lack of continuity and stability is a drag on investment.

Meanwhile the value of our investments in retirement will be under severe stress, creating losses that could also take years to recover. And all of this is happening while the administration is gutting the operational systems at agencies like Social Security and Veterans Affairs.

THIS CONCLUDES THE FIRST PORTION OF THIS POST. WE HOPE YOU FIND THIS INFORMATIVE AND URGE YOU TO READ THE SECOND.