Sanders paid over $400,000 for this ugly vinyl-sided shitbox colonial - and still owes a pile of money on it, even though he is old enough to be retired! With no savings in the bank, if he ever loses re-election to the Senate, he could be foreclosed upon! (if he didn't have such a cushy pension).
Why is Bernie so angry? He's angry because he has failed at life. Yes, he has been elected to the Senate as a Socialist from Vermont - insuring that he has little or no influence on Congress. And he's running for President of the United States, but isn't winning. Ralph Nader ran - a number of times. He's a loser, too.
Why do I say that Bernie is a failure? Look at his tax return from 2014. (why he has not released 2013 or 2015 is not clear, I suspect they might not be pretty). He made close to $200,000 a year with his salary in the Senate and his wife's business income. That's some serious bucks and clearly makes him 1%'er material - if he had bothered to save any of it. Sadly, he reports only a few dollars in interest and dividend income, which means he has little if any after-tax savings (he has a Senate Pension, however, and could have an IRA which is not reported).
But what is really sad is that the shitbox house shown above has a tax bill of over $14,000 a year. That's about $1200 a month or more than most people pay in rent. On top of that, he's paying close to $23,000 a year in mortgage interest at a time in his life when he should have his house paid-for, or at least be looking at the last few years of a mortgage (when the interest payments wind down to nothing).
And it is not that he hasn't had the opportunity to save money. Instead of buying a two-story four-bedroom house for two people, he could have downsized to something more appropriate, easy to care for, and less costly - and banked the difference.
And he's made a six-figure salary for a number of years - well over a decade - and yet still has a mortgage and no after-tax savings to speak of.
And then there are the reports of his credit-card debt - anywhere from $25,000 to $65,000 which he blames on having to pay for his niece's weddings (a man has to pay for his niece's weddings? I didn't know).
In other words, he is fiscally irresponsible.
His wife is an interesting person as well. While President of Burlington College, she expanded the campus by a factor of four - and nearly drove the college into bankruptcy. I am not sure what she is doing today, but they are showing about $5000 a year income from her "business" whatever that is. Perhaps these are book royalties or something.
The Sanders' are a profile of everything that has gone wrong with the middle-class in America.
1. They made good money - six figures - but managed to squander most of it.2. They bought a huge ugly "look at me!" house and are spending a ton of money on taxes and mortgage interest - chasing deductions the good old American way!3. They have (or had) a ton of credit card debt because of the paycheck-to-paycheck spending mentality.4. They want to blame Wall Street or the Banks for their woes, when it was their own actions who got them there.And you might add a special 5th circumstance, which applies to government employees:5. As government employees, they can rely on a pension and health care that the rest of us will never see.
In other words, they are pretty typical upper-middle-class Americans. Broke and blaming it all on someone else.
This is the guy we want for President? A guy who doesn't know the meaning of spending restraint or budgeting his lifestyle? A wife who drives a college to near-bankruptcy with grandiose expansion plans?
Sorry, but I don't see it. It is funny, but in one of my previous postings, I profiled another Vermonter who actually ended up as President - Calvin Coolidge. Forced to scrape a living from the rocky soil of his family's farm, he learned early on the merits of frugality.
Sanders, it seems, learned early on the merits of spending other people's money.
