Lifestyles of the rich and socialists: Bernie Sanders has 3 houses, makes millions

Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Entered the 2020 presidential race this week promising to transform America with a left-wing view of economic and environmental justice. But the high-end incomes of the self-proclaimed Socialist Democrat, his multiple houses and his penchant for air transport have already opened him to the criticism that his lifestyle does not always correspond to rhetoric.

Sanders is touted as a grassroots economic populist, focused on income inequality and raising taxes for the wealthy.

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"Our campaign is about transforming our country and creating a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice," he said.

"Together, we and our 2016 campaign started the political revocation," he said. "The time has come to complete this revolution and to implement the vision for which we fought."

But Sanders has frowned on his expenses and his personal wealth. He owns three houses. In 2016, he bought a $ 575,000 lakeside home in his home state. This is in addition to a townhouse in Washington DC, as well as a home in Burlington, Vermont.

"Bern will keep their home in Burlington and use the new camp seasonally," Seven Day said in Vermont in 2016.

The multiple houses, however, question the statements of the past, as when he asked in 2017: "How many yachts do they need a billionaire? How many cars do they need? Give us a break. You can not have everything.

Sanders has also earned more than a million dollars in recent years, even though he remains at the bottom of the Senate Democrats' scale in terms of net worth.

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VTDigger announced in May that it had earned more than a million dollars in 2017, of which $ 885,767 came from cash advances and royalties for its book "Our Revolution" on its failed bid to the presidency of 2016. This is the second time that he earns about this amount, more than one million in 2016 as well.

Despite this, according to Forbes, he has one of the lowest net worth among presidential candidates, with an estimated net worth of about $ 700,000, according to Forbes. In comparison with her other Democrats, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a left-wing leader, has a net worth of about $ 7.8 million.

The Conservatives pointed out, however, that Sanders' way of life was contradictory given his tax-rich mantras.

"That's why we call them limousine liberals," said Tuesday the president of the Americans for tax reform, Grover Norquist, in the show "The Evening Edit" of Fox Business Network. "You have enough money. You can also imagine spending other people's money.

"His health care plan, he admits, costs $ 32 trillion. He wants a general tax of 8% on the salaries of citizens, which represents only $ 12 trillion, an 8% reduction in the remuneration of each to be able to pay his health plan. [and] he only pays one-third, "he said. "So you can imagine the infinite number of tax increases and regulations they seek to apply."

But other aspects of his lifestyle also attract attention, particularly in relation to his calls to limit environmental pollution and to redistribute the wealth of "millionaires and billionaires".

In October, he spent close to $ 300,000 on air travel, which allowed him to reach an audience of nine states by mid-November. This comes from a candidate who has approved a Green New Deal aimed at significantly reducing (or even eliminating completely) air travel.

The Sanders team reportedly purchased nearly $ 5,000 in carbon offsets to offset emissions from the trip, according to VTDigger. Carbon offsetting is a reduction in emissions to offset emissions elsewhere.

On the same day, his campaign paid the jet company, Sanders, for describing climate change as a "global crisis" in a tweet.

Since Sanders announced his candidacy for the presidency, he has received a new wave of criticism from the Conservatives. Commentator Charlie Kirk joked: "For a committed socialist, he seems to really like to live like a capitalist."

Other parts of his family relationships will likely be the object of increased supervision. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal again focused on the controversy surrounding Bernie's wife, Jane Sanders, and her tenure as president of Burlington College.

The college closed in 2016, because of the huge debt accumulated while Sanders was in charge, especially when the college entered into a $ 10 million real estate transaction. Federal investigators investigated whether Jane Sanders had committed bank fraud by inflating the amount promised to donors by the school – but the investigators would have closed the investigation and would not have carried out any investigation. charge.

Republicans in Vermont attempted to tie the controversy to Bernie Sanders.

"If she had been Jane Doe instead of Jane Sanders, she would never have gotten this loan, she would never have survived the most basic subscriptions," Vermont Republican Vice President Brady Toensing said Thursday. .

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In response to Fox & Friends' request for comment, Jeff Weaver, Senior Consultant at Bernie 2020, said: "These false allegations began with a Vermont President's political complaint for Vermont in 2016. Like Jane said from the beginning, she did nothing wrong and was pleased that the investigation ended months ago ".

"It's no coincidence that Bernie Sanders' fundraising record was beaten on the first day of his campaign, and Fox News regurgitated false attacks from Trump's pals," he said. declared.

But the Wall Street Journal resumed the saga and reported that between 2009 and 2011, the school had spent more than $ 328,000 to enroll students in a carpentry school run by Mrs. Sanders' daughter, " 'financial incompetence and a tendency to nepotism'.

"It sounds a lot like socialism," the editorial said.

Louis Casiano and Fred Lucas of Fox News contributed to this report.