It’s highly likely this diary will garner angry comments from Sanders supporters. Due to this likelihood, I’ve gone back and forth on whether not to publish this at all which is evidence of the clash here on Daily Kos between natural allies.
I decided to publish after reading a diary that hit the rec list today about Mayor Pete attending “secret meetings” with leading “Stop Sanders” Dems who have been labeled “centrist” and/or “neo-liberal” by Sanders supporters. I actually chuckled when I saw the diary’s large photo of Mayor Pete. After Monday’s Daily Kos Poll showed Mayor Pete nipping at Sanders’ heels, I thought to myself: “Cue anti-Pete diaries.” And here we are less than 48 hours later. Are other anti-Pete diaries being crafted as I write this? We’ll see.
Should anyone claim I wrote this to somehow defend Mayor Pete know this: Mayor Pete is not on my short list. I am a Kamala Harris supporter and make automatic monthly contributions to her campaign as does my husband. Julian Castro and Corey Booker are tied for my second choice should Harris drop out and Liz Warren is my third choice.
Before Sanders released his tax returns on Monday, I’d read a number of 2017 articles indicating he had reached the millionaire income bracket as of 2016 and his current estimated net worth is around $2-million.
From the Burlington Free Press published in 2017:
Sen. Bernie Sanders' income spiked in 2016 as he finished a bid for the presidency, according to a new financial disclosure report filed Sunday with the U.S. Senate.
The independent Vermont senator earned a $795,000 advance for the book about his presidential campaign, "Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In." The publisher also paid for Sanders and his wife, Jane, to take a 19-stop cross-country book tour, according to the financial disclosure.
… Sanders earned a total of $865,484 from his books, plus $2,520 in royalties from the 1987 folk album that he recorded while mayor of Burlington…. Sanders also received $5,086 in pension income from the city of Burlington, while Jane Sanders received more than $1,000 in retirement income. With his $174,000 earned as a U.S. senator, Sanders' total earnings in 2016 totaled more than $1 million.
https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/05/sanders-rakes-865-000-book-deals/371038001/
His most current book, Where We Go From Here, was published in 2018 by Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of global publisher Macmillan:
“The new book — priced at $27.99, the same figure as Sanders’ average campaign contribution — originally was set for release Nov. 13. But Macmillan has moved the publication date to Oct. 30 — a week before the Nov. 6 midterm elections in which he’ll seek another congressional term…
… The book promises to help Sanders not only politically but also personally. The author has received a $505,000 advance for his latest title, U.S. Senate financial disclosure forms reveal. That’s less than the $795,000 he earned for “Our Revolution” but more than the $63,750 he collected for the youth adaptation “Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution.”
https://vtdigger.org/2018/06/17/bernie-sanders-new-book-sign-2020-bid/
Personally, I don’t begrudge Sanders his success and I’ve never “hated” anyone for being financially successful. In the work I do, I provide writing services to highly successful entrepreneurs and family businesses. They all have a net worth in the low millions.
All of them started from scratch with a concept and continue to put in 80 hours a week at work to grow their companies for their families and their employees. And my most successful client, the one who accounts for the largest portion of my income as a sub-contractor, makes a point to “give back” through generous donations to charities because they believe it’s their duty.
In fact, Americans donate more to charities than any other nation in the free world (emphasis mine):
… $358 billion that Americans gave to charity in 2014, only 14 percent came from foundation grants, and just 5 percent from corporations. The rest—81 percent—came from individuals….
Per capita, Americans voluntarily donate about seven times as much as continental Europeans. Even our cousins the Canadians give to charity at substantially lower rates, and at half the total volume of an American household….
High-income households provide an outsized share of all philanthropic giving. Those in the top 1 percent of the income distribution (any family making $394,000 or more in 2015) provide about a third of all charitable dollars given in the U.S. When it comes to bequests, the rich are even more important: the wealthiest 1.4 percent of Americans are responsible for 86 percent of the charitable donations made at death, according to one study.
https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/statistics/who-gives
Following this American tradition of charitable donations, Sanders’ recently released tax returns show he and his wife, Jane, have donated $10,600 of their gross income in 2016, $36,300 in 2017, followed by nearly $19,000 in 2018. For this I commend him.
One thing is hard to deny -- the source of Bernie Sanders’ financial success is American Capitalism.
Like many American entrepreneurs, Sanders has successfully capitalized on an idea and leveraged it with the celebrity he built in 2016 to generate his current total net worth – $2-million in just 4 years since his 2016 primary run.
His “Our Revolution” book advance is nearly triple what Liz Warren received as an advance for her book and double the advance Kamala Harris received.
From what I could find online, it appears the only Democratic politicians who have received far higher book advances than Bernie Sanders are the Clintons and the Obamas. Both of whom have been criticized by many progressives for what they perceive as “cashing in.”
Again – I don’t begrudge Sanders growing his wealth by “cashing in” on his celebrity as well. What I do find hard to reconcile is that the Obamas and the Clintons have been criticized by many progressives for being “capitalists,” “neo-liberals” and/or “centrists” while Sanders is held up as the leader of the working-class struggle.
Meanwhile, since his 2016 primary, Bernie Sanders (who now owns three fairly valuable homes) has availed himself of the same “capitalist” opportunities to build his personal wealth — including signing a book contract with a rather large global conglomerate like Macmillan. It’s common knowledge publishers like Macmillan print and bind their titles in Chinese printing plants – and I’m quite sure these aren’t union shops.
Add to this the Clintons have received massive criticism for the Clinton Foundation from progressives who support Sanders. Though the Clinton Foundation has earned high ratings for transparency, including providing the public with its donor list, the criticism continues.
This brings me to The Sanders Institute & Its Zero Transparency.
Founded in June 2017, seven months after the General Election, Jane O’Meara Sanders, launched the nonprofit Sanders Institute. Described as a progressive think tank, it has received criticism for its lack of transparency across the board (emphasis mine):
CONCORD, N.H. — The Sanders Institute, a think tank founded by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' wife and son, is shutting down, at least for now, amid criticism that the nonprofit has blurred the lines between family, fundraising and campaigning….
As a candidate in 2016, Sanders criticized Hillary Clinton over her family's nonprofit, saying the foundation run by Clinton's husband and daughter amounted to a back door for foreign leaders and others seeking to buy access and influence.
The Sanders Institute could open the Vermont senator to charges of hypocrisy…. “For a politician who runs on fairness and socialist principles, this looks like the old political games," said Lawrence R. Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs. "It's a product of running a political operation in which family rules the roost."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders-family-institute-shutting-down/
Though poised to shut down, the Jane Sanders has indicated The Sanders Institute may reopen after the 2020 election:
The Vermont institute stopped accepting donations and will suspend all operations by the end of May [2019]…. Speaking to AP, Jane Sanders kept the door open for the institute to begin taking donations again once Bernie Sanders is no longer running for president.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/434186-sanders-institute-shutting-down-amid-criticism
In July 2018, The Vermont Digger published an article concluding that the Sanders Institute “has little to show for” the donations collected:
… Less attention has been paid to The Sanders Institute, a 501(c)(3) non-profit without disclosure requirements whose mission must be chiefly non-partisan. A VTDigger analysis of organization’s maiden year found little original work from the think tank, which took in nearly a half-million dollars in contributions and grants last year.
… In a June 2017 interview with USA Today, Jane Sanders said the institute would be producing and distributing “original content,” yet the organization’s website is largely filled with recycled work. In its first year, the group has released just four press releases, three of which were released in its first month of existence.
… Jane Sanders also told USA Today that one area of focus would be the lack of proper funding and management of health care on Native American reservations. She told the publication that she planned to personally visit Alaska to highlight the work of the Southcentral Foundation’s work to improve rural and native health conditions. That hasn’t happened. …
More complete details here: https://vtdigger.org/2018/07/29/sanders-institute-little-show-first-year-500k/
Suffice to say, if Bernie Sanders wins the Democratic primary, what I’ve shared above is just a portion of the opposition research the GOP will use against him in the general election.
In fact, The Daily Caller has already started the ball rolling with this all caps headline: SANDERS’ WIFE AND KID SHUT DOWN THEIR SHADY ‘THINK TANK’. (I refuse to post a link to Tucker Carlson’s online rag.)
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In anticipation of questions I may get in the comments section:
Do I support raising the top tax rate for high earners? Yes.
Do I support healthcare for all Americans and consider it a human right? Yes (I support Medicare for Americans, not MFA).
Do I support free-tuition community and state colleges? Yes.
Do I support raising the minimum wage to $15/hour? Yes (I actually believe it should be $20/hour).
Do I think corporate conglomerates need to pay FAR, FAR MORE than the near-zero or at-zero taxes they now pay under the GOP tax cuts? Hell, yes.
Do I think the overseas tax shelters of corporations and the mega-rich need to be dismantled and we need to stop them from using their riches to dictate government policies? Hell, yes.
However, what I do not support is broad brush condemnations that demonize Democratic party and its candidates as centrist or neo-liberal “hacks” thanks to jingoistic sound bites and tweets that pit “American capitalism” against “democratic socialism.”
I find this less than honorable when the nations’ leading proponent of “democratic socialism” has so quickly ramped up his personal wealth — tripled? quadrupled? — under the American system of capitalism.
As I finish writing this, I see a second diary has hit the rec list claiming rich liberals “hate” Sanders.
If it’s considered fair play to publish two Daily Kos dairies claiming there’s a democratic movement to “Stop Sanders,” it’s equally fair to question if Sanders walks his talk.
With that said, let the outrage begin.