Failure of Burlington College is a big problem for Bernie and Jane Sanders

[Henhouse]

Failure of Burlington College is a big problem for Bernie and Jane Sanders

By James Hohmann May 17 THE BIG IDEA: Burlington College is feeling the burn.

Bernie Sanders is huge on college campuses—or yuuuuge, as he likes to say—but the small private school in Vermont that his wife, Jane, ran for seven years announced yesterday that it will shutter because of “the crushing weight” of debt incurred under her leadership.

Burlington College said its financial troubles are connected to Mrs. Sanders’s 2010 purchase of 32 acres of lakefront property, part of a botched expansion plan. The college was placed on academic probation in 2014 by its accrediting agency and it faced cash flow problems due to the imminent loss of a line of credit, The Post’s Nick Anderson reports. To survive, the school has tried to sell land but it was not enough to remain solvent.

Jane Sanders was president from 2004 until 2011, when she stepped down amid an apparent dispute with the college’s board. She left with a $200,000 severance package.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/05/17/daily-202-failure-of-burlington-college-is-a-big-problem-for-bernie-and-jane-sanders/573a388c981b92a22d837b46/?tid=hybrid_collaborative_1_na--

The Sanders campaign has ignored repeated requests for comment on Burlington College’s failure. The uncharacteristic silence is telling.

[mikeysnot]

1. ^^

[Barack_America]

9. Yeah, Bill Clinton collapsed our entire manufacturing sector.

Perhaps a bit more significant?

But, I don't know, this Burlington college bit could really hurt Bernie in the rust belt. And you'd have to imagine VT is in play for Trump now.

[Henhouse]

15. Politifact - Sanders on Bill Clinton and job loss -We rate his statement Mostly False.

Sanders overshoots on NAFTA job losses

By Jon Greenberg on Monday, March 7th, 2016 at 3:02 p.m.

Our ruling

Sanders said that NAFTA, which Clinton used to support, cost the U.S. economy 800,000 jobs. There is a report from a left-leaning policy group that reached that conclusion. On the other hand, many other nonpartisan reports found that the trade deal produced neither significant job losses nor job gains. This is a result of competing economic models and the challenges of teasing out the effects of NAFTA from everything else that has taken place in the economy.

The report Sanders cited is an outlier, and his use of its findings ignores important facts that would give a different impression. We rate his statement Mostly False.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/07/bernie-s/sanders-overshoots-nafta-job-losses/

[riversedge]

17. No worries. Sanders will not make it to the GE, so no need for him or you to worry about votes

in the Rustbelt.

[Tavarious Jackson]

23. Kills his integrity doesn't it?

[bvf]

2. Have a good nap?

[Jester Messiah]

3. More brockoli.

A few more posts in this one's count, but enough to put him around the same registration date as the rest.

[riversedge]

16. LOL> More Sanders fans obsessed with Brock. And more demeaning du members,

[Jester Messiah]

31. Lovin' that cognitive dissonance, 'sedge.

Bernie Sanders "isn't even a Democrat", but some brockoloid troll who joined a month ago is "a DU member." You guys spin so hard you have your own gravitational field.

[SidDithers]

35. The OP has been a DUer 6 years longer than you...nt

Sid

[Jester Messiah]

37. And has a triple digit post count.

I'm guessing that sleeper account was sold, but admittedly that's just speculation on my part.

[beachbum bob]

4. can't dispute the facts she ran burlington college and she made the decisions that put

burlington in trouble...and that fact she is hiding unwilling to answer any questions. Same with bernie, he won't answer either. Keeping their tax returns hidden most likely are hiding other issues neither of them want to discuss.

for a campaign based on open and transparency and moral high ground seems like the sanders have many things they want to hide

[Henhouse]

8. It is also an example of Sanders not being vetted....

Republicans ignore this story because they want Bernie to stay in the race....So he and his supporters can continue attacking the Democratic nominee....

[Barack_America]

11. No. It is a good example of Bernie being vetted and only finding weak sauce like this.

They dug and dug, and only came up with this.

[Henhouse]

13. When the over arching theme of your campaign is economic justice and free tuition...

The fact that Mrs. Sanders ran a college into the ground with her poor financial judgment and then - was given a $200,000 Golden Parachute for leaving all this distruction in her path - is pretty damning.

[Live and Learn]

38. +10,000 nt

[beachbum bob]

12. its not a huge thing but the inability of either sanders or jane to address it is the real concern,

imagine everything else in sanders past of being a ranting wide-eye socialist is brought up....is he going to run and hide from all that too?? Sanders not vetted is one the MAJOR weakness of him, his wife and his campaign.

we are lucky he is not our nominee, it would be disastrous...as we would watch sanders and jane run from answering

no wonder they haven't released their tax records

[imagine2015]

5. Jane Sanders got a severance package! How horrilble. We're talking major scandel here!

And don't forget Bernie's gangster ties!

[TwilightZone]

19. The college is closing and has indicated that her failed expansion plan is the primary reason

Try to keep up

[imagine2015]

20. A weally big poblem! Oh my! What will Jane Sanders do?

[TwilightZone]

21. You're ok with the fact that she singlehandedly drove a college into the ground?

That explains a lot.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

26. "Singlehandedly"? Colleges have boards of trustees.

And lawyers. While in hindsight the deal proved to be a bad one, there's no way Jane Sanders could have singlehandedly negotiated, decided or approved it. Any decision of this magnitude would have had to be reviewed by lawyers and approved by the college's board of trustees - none of whom, any more than Sanders, wanted to harm the college. It was already in bad financial shape and they thought they were helping it. Unfortunately it didn't work out. Maybe like Whitewater, another failed business venture....

[kstewart33]

28. Jane disappeared from cable TV right after Burlington announced it was closing.

Have you seen her lately? Jane has been Bernie's chief spokesperson up until a few weeks ago. Now, she's nowhere to be found.

For a one-building college with fewer than 300 students, $200k is one heck of a lot of money.

Jane drove the campaign that led to the college's demise. She was fired by the Board of Trustees.

If she ever appears on cable TV again, she will surely be asked about her tenure as president. About the payoff. And also about accusations that she funneled BC money to her family and friends.

That's why she's disappeared.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

30. She disappeared from cable TV? That's a sure sign of... something.

Is it OK to ask Bill Clinton about Monica Lewinski now?

[CrowCityDem]

6. Has anyone associated with the campaign said a single word about Burlington yet?

Seems to me that they should have at least made some kind of perfunctory statement of denial. It is rather interesting that they've been radio silent.

[Sunlei]

7. College counted on 'pledged' donations to survive, should have cut their Admins fabulous salaries.

And don't expand or take out bank loans until the donations are collected.

[upaloopa]

10. I think the Bernie we have been handed is a myth. He did great PR paiting himself as the savior of

the middle class.

In reality he could never make any of his ideas work. I am glad the majority of us could see through his talking points.

[Gothmog]

14. Trump would have fun using this if Sanders was the nominee

[kstewart33]

29. Trump has much more than that to use against Bernie.

And it's political kryptonite.

[imagine2015]

18. It's a really, really, really big and huuggeeeee problem! It's all over the media.

Jane Sanders getting severance pay. Scandalous, I say, scandalous! I bet she now hangs out with Wall Street tycoons.

[workinclasszero]

22. "The Sanders campaign has ignored repeated requests for comment on Burlington College’s failure."

Not to mention Bernie and Jane's phantom tax returns.

[thesquanderer]

24. It is only a potential problem for Bernie if you think he'll still be in the race after June 7.

So thanks for your optimism.

[Henhouse]

25. HRC is already pivoting to GE....So yes.. Very optimistic.

Happy Memorial Day...

[Demsrule86]

27. Race or no race

Mortgage fraud is a serious issue and he is in the Senate, they have rules.

[thesquanderer]

34. It could be an issue for Jane.

For Bernie, though, mostly just a matter of PR, which won't matter if he's no longer in the Pres race.

[nc4bo]

32. From The Burlington Free Press.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/education/2014/08/15/financial-questions-dog-burlington-college/14117505/

[cherokeeprogressive]

33. No, it isn't. Tell David that dog ain't huntin'.

[msanthrope]

39. Actually, the only thing of note is the alleged SAR filed. Everything else

is speculative BS. If one was filed, then that's trouble.

[jeff47]

36. Almost as big as the DMX story. You spent an entire day insisting it was true.

And when shown a multitude of other videos that did not have the song, you insisted all of those videos were fake.

So....why exactly should we trust your "insights" here?

[azurnoir]

40. yep such a problem you had to dig up a nearly 2 week old article to remin-er show us

fact Jane has not been with the collage for 5 years, if the problems could not be addressed in that time perhaps it says something about the collage itself

and oh BTW that severance package or 'golden parachute' as I've seen it called is less than Hillary's Wall Street speaking fees

[Henhouse]

41. Two weeks is fairly recent...n/t

[azurnoir]

44. ummm ya go with that

[hrmjustin]

42. Sanders is done so it doesn't matter anymore.

[Henhouse]

43. Agreed and amen....n/t