Tom Steyer is running for Governor of California.

And he’s channeling New York Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani.

To quote Steyer. “The richest people in America think they earned everything themselves, That’s bull s - - -.”

Perhaps his campaign theme song can be the whirling sound of the gas pumps working stiffs in California hear as they fill their gas tanks with the most expensive gas in the nation.

Steyer played a big role in making that happen as well as the fact PG&E customers are paying 80 percent above the national average.

Steyer is a billionaire. And he is also a hypocrite to the tune of $2.2 billion.

Steyer worked for Morgan Stanley on acquisitions and mergers. Then he jumped to Goldman Sachs. You remember Goldman Sachs? They had a big role in the subprime mortgage crisis that devastated families across California and the nation and set the economy into its worst tailspin since the Great Recession.

Ok, guilt by association isn’t fair. Neither is rewriting history. It is what Steyer did after leaving Wall Street and striking out on his own. He founded a hedge fund based in San Francisco called Farallon Capital. As such, he had a direct role in the hedge fund’s success. It included investments in coal that increased coal production by 70 million tons.

Under Steyer’s eye on making the most money, Farallon Capital invested in oil sands, offshore drilling equipment, and other oil-related firms.

Why does any of that matter? Drum roll. Steyer after moving on from Farallon Capital he became a climate activist. You read that right. The man who became a billionaire investing in oil and coal became a kindred spirit with Greta Thunberg.

It is actually much more than that. Steyer in 2010 tapped into his hedge fund earnings to help fund the anti-Proposition 23 campaign. That was a grassroots effort to repeal Assembly Bill 32.

To refresh your memory, that is the California Legislature’s move that established the cap-and-trade program. It also established standards for renewable electricity and low-carbon fuel.

Those standards are what forced PG&E into expensive long-term green electricity contracts when such wholesale energy options were scarce. That locked in what are now sky-high prices that PG&E and other California retail providers then passed on to their customers.

That’s why the video Steyer released to announce his run for governor was more than a little disingenuous.

Steyer, who is now all about affordability, said with a straight face “we have the second highest electricity rates in the nation.”

No kidding.

Instead of complaining about it, Steyer should be honest and take credit for his role in 16 million PG&E customers having a cardiac event once a month when they open their monthly electric bill.

Cap-and-trade is responsible for the hidden tax one pays at the gas pump that oil companies are forced to pay for the right to refine oil in California.

To be clear, the oil refining process in California follows the strictest possible regulations.

That means oil refineries can’t avoid generating a degree of greenhouse gas to refine oil into gasoline.

And because of that, under cap-and-trade oil refineries have to pay the state for the right to pollute.

And that payment to the state is, depending upon which expert is estimating it, is between 5 and 15 cents a gallon siphoned out of consumers’ pockets.

A dime a gallon adds up quick.

Portraying himself as the champion of the little guy when it comes to affordable electricity isn’t the only deception Steyer wants you to buy.

He brags about his successful effort in 2012 to get a ballot initiative passed that requires out-of-state corporations to pay California taxes on the share of their profits generated from in-state transactions.

And in the next breath, he talks about helping the little guy by what one must assume is imposing new regulations on businesses.

Yet, with measures he helped put in place didn’t deter corporations from moving headquarters out of state since in terms of taxes on profits. The reason is simple. The high cost of doing business in California also involves burdensome and costly regulations that are on steroids compared to other states.

The loss is jobs squeezes Californians.

But that’s OK.

Steyer says he’s all about affordability these days even though most people have to have a job to afford things instead of playing the hedge fund game that brought firms like PG&E — a corporation with 85 felony counts of manslaughter — from the doorstep of bankruptcy into being able to enjoy record $2.5 billion annual profits seven years later.

True, Steyer dropped out of the hedge fund game long before PG&E torched Paradise.

But his vast fortune is on the back of rock and roll Wall Street capitalism and not Main Street capitalism.

It is why it is more than a little rich that Steyer is now lamenting about affordability when his wealth was made from propping up prices people pay for basic needs so the funds he invested in yielded as large of profits as possible.

It’s always fun to have people like Steyer who amass great fortunes often built on the backs of people that likely weren’t paid much better than minimum wage to lecture the world about green responsibility after they have harvested trainloads of greenbacks.

Perhaps the biggest reason not to vote to send Steyer to Sacramento is his fizzled 2020 campaign to try and secure the Democratic nomination for president. Steyer spent in the neighborhood of $200 million before he dropped out. That translated into $4,600 for every vote he received.

California doesn’t need someone who apparently has complete the disregard for responsible spending now that we are facing a $18 billion deficit as Gavin Newsom enters his final year as governor.

—  This column is the opinion of Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Courier or 209 Multimedia. He may be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com