Bernie Sanders' Wife Accounts For All His Reported Assets

Bernie Sanders' Wife Accounts For All Of His Reported Assets

Jonathan Topaz and Kristen East

7/16/15

Bernie Sanders on Thursday reported less than $750,000 in assets — all of it in his wife’s name — according to his presidential personal financial disclosure form.

The Vermont senator, mounting a liberal insurgent campaign against front-runner Hillary Clinton, also listed between $25,002-$65,000 in credit card debt on his Visa cards.

According to the disclosure, Sanders and his wife Jane reported between $194,026-$741,030 in assets, a broad combination of investment funds.

The relatively modest disclosure is another indication that Sanders — a populist and self-described democratic socialist who rails against the “billionaire class” and has called income inequality “the great moral issue of our time” — is far less wealthy than many of his Senate colleagues and fellow presidential contenders. Clinton and her husband Bill, for instance, made at least $30 million in less than a year and a half, according to personal financial disclosures released in May.

Sanders, by contrast, has no listed assets on his entire financial disclosure form, save for a municipal pension — all the assets provided in the form are listed in his wife’s name. He reported no trusts or stock of any kind.

His two credit cards, issued through the Congressional and Senate credit unions, carry interest rates of 8.5 and 10.25 percent respectively.

Campaign advisers pitch the candidate as an average American — one who doesn’t receive astronomical speaking fees and isn’t immune from tacking on some debt. In an interview on the day of his campaign kickoff launch in late May, Sanders — asked about the Clintons’ millions of earnings — said having that much money can make it harder to fully appreciate the problems facing working people. “That type of wealth has the potential to isolate you from the reality of the world,” he told CNBC.

Sanders’ $174,000 salary as a member of the Senate was not listed on the form. The couple’s real estate assets are not disclosed, either. According to campaign spokesman Michael Briggs, the senator owns at least two homes, one in Vermont and one on Capitol Hill.

In his 2012 Senate personal financial disclosures, Sanders reported having a joint rental property in Burlington valued at $100,001-$250,000, for which he received $5,001-$15,000 in income. Also in 2012, he reporting a 30-year mortgage of $50,001-$100,000 for a condo in Washington, D.C., dating from 2000.

The senator also indicated that he receives a yearly pension of $5,000 from his time serving as Burlington mayor. He donated all royalties from his 2011 book, “The Speech,” to charity, as well as an $850 appearance fee on political comedian Bill Maher’s HBO show, for a total of $1,867.

Jane Sanders, a former president of Burlington College, also reported undisclosed compensation from two Vermont state boards. Sanders’ most recent Senate disclosure indicated that both of those were more than $1,000.