General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Ocasio-Cortez: House Democrats too old to understand income inequality [View all]grantcart
(53,061 posts)1) First Sanders probably wasn't the poorest person in the Senate, Joe Biden probably was. We can't say definitively because Sanders never released his tax returns. Biden on the other hand has released all of his assets so I know exactly what assets he has including the fact that he has 4 life insurance policies with Mass Mutual.
2) What does a person's net worth have to do with anything? Nothing. The issue with Sanders is his raging hypocrisy on two rather obvious issues:
First his lack of transparency. He demanded that Clinton release speeches but he refused to release his tax records, something that BOTH Democratic and Republican candidates for President did for 40 years until Sanders and Trump stopped the practice.
Secondly his attacks against the classes changed after he joined the millionaire class:
Before the election he routinely railed against the "Millionaires and Billionaires" as this quote from BernieSanders.com in 2016
https://berniesanders.com/issues/income-and-wealth-inequality/
There is something profoundly wrong when we have a proliferation of millionaires and billionaires at the same time as millions of Americans work longer hours for lower wages and we have the highest childhood poverty rate of nearly any developed country on earth.
And after he joined the Millionaire class he dropped the attack on the Millionaires and focused only on Billionaires:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/14/power-billionaires-bernie-sanders-poverty-life-expectancy-climate-change
Meanwhile, as the billionaires flaunt their opulence, nearly one in seven people struggle to survive on less than $1.25 (90p) a day and horrifyingly some 29,000 children die daily from entirely preventable causes such as diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia.
I don't fault Bernie or anyone other making sound investments during a long professional life and having a respectful portfolio that was based on a lifetime of saving and investing.
Here are the facts:
1) Sanders cashed in and virtually all of his net worth derived from activity that was an auxiliary to the campaign for a party nomination for a party that he a) promised to join and never leave and b) continues to denounce as a failure:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/bernie-sanders-democratic-partys-platform-has-been-a-failure-for-the-past-15-years
The business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so has been a failure, Sanders said, a line that was met with applause at a panel event in Mississippi Wednesday night.
I find Sanders comments in 2018 very strange because of the choice of words "business model" for a political party but putting that aside he is basically calling the 8 years of the Obama Presidency a failure because that was the "business model" of the Democratic party between 2008 and 2016, but again a very strange way for an experienced politician to characterize it.
2) Before he ran his sole income was based on his Senate income and afterwards he was able to monetize that bring in millions. That's fine, but if you were listening carefully he stopped railing against "Millionaires and Billionaires" and started focusing on just the few "really really rich". In the article from January he no longer rails against the top 8% of Americans (which he now joins) but rails against Jeff Bezos and his 100 billion and 4 mansions, etc.
The target of Sanders attacks depends on how much money he personally has.
3) Sanders is the least transparent of politicians. Except for Trump all Republicans released their tax returns but Sanders refuses. It amazes me how those who would demand of it from every other politician don't mind that Sanders refuses to disclose his assets and income, something that everyone else has done for 50 years.
Its not about his wealth or lack of it but the raging hypocrisy that he engages in.