Sanders reported over $1 million in adjusted gross income ("AGI") on his 2016 and 2017 tax returns and over $500,000 in 2018.
How does a public servant get that rich? The easiest path today is to run for President and write a book.
I guess that explains why we have nearly 20 Democrats now running for President and that number is likely to climb. There is no better way to gain fame and fortune in this media era we live in than declaring a run for the Presidency. I still find it ironic that the one guy who did not need to do that to get fame and fortune is the one who is criticized the most for using the office for financial gain. Forbes magazine actually reported that Trump has lost wealth as President. Every other person gains wealth. Look no further than Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton for ample evidence of that.
Sanders said last night on a town hall meeting on Fox News Channel that he was not going to apologize for writing a great book (did he really write it or was it a ghostwriter?) that people wanted to read and he made a lot of money on.
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| Bernie Sanders at Fox News Channel Town Hall, April 15, 2019 Credit: nbcnews.com |
I agree. More power to Bernie for cashing in. However, let's be real. Sanders would not have had two people interested in what he had to say if he was not a Senator from Vermont and ran for President. Everything he has "accomplished" was done on the public dole. Everything he might accomplish in the future will be done the same way.
That is why it is easy for Bernie to say that he wants to tax the rich, redistribute the wealth and pay more taxes individually. The economics are simple. Bernie the politician gains power and money that are many multiples of what he might ever pay in taxes individually. That power comes from the money in other people's pockets that he wants to trade for votes.
Sanders earns his reputation as a Socialist honestly. Until he was age 40 he never had a steady job or paycheck. Of course, when he got a steady job it was a government job---Mayor of Burlington, Vermont.
Investor's Business Daily provided some useful background on "Bernie Sanders, The Bum Who Wants Your Money" in an editorial in 2016.
Sanders spent most of his life as an angry radical and agitator who never accomplished much of anything.
One of his first jobs was registering people for food stamps, and it was all downhill from there.
Sanders took his first bride to live in a maple sugar shack with a dirt floor, and she soon left him. Penniless, he went on unemployment. Then he had a child out of wedlock. Desperate, he tried carpentry but could barely sink a nail. “He was a shi**y carpenter,” a friend told Politico Magazine. “His carpentry was not going to support him, and didn’t.”
Then he tried his hand freelancing for leftist rags, writing about “masturbation and rape” and other crudities for $50 a story. He drove around in a rusted-out, Bondo-covered VW bug with no working windshield wipers. Friends said he was “always poor” and his “electricity was turned off a lot.”
They described him as a slob who kept a messy apartment — and this is what his friends had to say about him
Of course, reviewing his tax returns reveal how wrong Sanders is when he decries our tax system. They also raise questions as to how he manages his own money.
A popular theme of Sanders is that the rich don't pay enough. We need to make our tax system more progressive so the rich pay "their fair share."
Let's take a look at that argument by looking at Bernie's tax returns.
In 2015, before the book royalties started coming in, Bernie had AGI of around $250,000. His federal and state income tax payments were $43,000---an effective tax rate of 17%.
In 2017, after the book money flowed in, Bernie had AGI of $1,132,00. His federal and state tax income payments were $488,486 ---an effective tax rate of 43%.
To put in more simply, Bernie's income increased a little over 4 times. His income tax bill increased over 10-fold. That is the result when you have a very progressive tax system. How much more progressive does Bernie want it to be?
What is also revealing to me about Bernie's tax returns is, that despite the millions he earned the last few years, there is little evidence of where it went (other than in income taxes) by reviewing his returns.
You would think that when someone comes into that type of windfall you would expect that some part of money would go into interest-bearing bank accounts, money market funds, bonds or stocks. This would be reflected on the returns in increased interest income and dividends.
Bernie reported $96 in interest income and no dividend income in 2015. He reported $381 and $1 in dividend income in 2018. Bernie does not seem very focused on saving for a rainy day. My children had more interest and dividends than this from savings from their summer jobs when they were teenagers.
What did he do with his new found wealth?
He didn't spend it on medical expenses. He reported just $2,250 in medical expenses for 2018. It was about the same in 2016 and 2017.
He didn't give it to charity. He gave 3.4% away in 2015 and the same percentage in 2018.
I have read that Bernie has purchased another house or two with his new found wealth but that is not apparent in looking at his returns. He took a deduction for $11,953 in property taxes in 2015 and $11,604 in 2018. That does not suggest he owned more real estate in 2018 than in 2015.
He may have paid down part of his home mortgage. He paid $21,658 in mortgage interest in 2015 but that amount was down to $11,804 in 2018.
It is a mystery to me how you can earn millions over the course of several years and there is no evidence of where it went by looking at that man's tax returns.
I will give this much to Bernie. He is a socialist through and through. He has not invested anything in the American system of capitalism. He apparently has not even purchased U.S. Treasury securities or U.S. savings bonds. He does not personally support many charitable activities. There is little to suggest that he is invested in anything but himself.
Of course, the Democrats are hell-bent in trying to get a hold of Donald Trump's tax returns. Would they also be revealing? I have no doubt that there would also be interesting information in those returns as well.
However, it surely would not show any evidence of "collusion" with the Russians which is the reason the Democrats claim they need to see the returns. It more likely shows that Trump may not be quite as wealthy as he claims to be. He might have paid less in taxes than you might think because of large (legal) depreciation expenses on his properties. It might also show that Trump is no more generous with his money than Bernie is.
However, those returns also undoubtedly show the expansive and complex real estate empire that Trump built and the thousands of jobs that were created in the process for other Americans.
Say what you will, but Donald Trump has a long history of investing and putting money to work in the United States of America. He is what is called a "maker".
Bernie Sanders, from all appearances, is nothing but a "taker."
Is he going to "take" the Democrats and the country for a ride as well?
The past is prologue. He and his wife have certainly been taking the taxpayers of Vermont for a ride.
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