Sen. Bernie Sanders will host a televised town hall to discuss the issue of rising income inequality. The Vermont progressive will be joined by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. Because, after all, who is more qualified to talk poverty than three millionaire politicos?
“We’re going to talk about extreme poverty in America,” Sanders told HuffPost, who first broke the news. “Then we’re going to be talking about where we go from here. How do we create an economy that works for everybody and not just the 1 percent?”
That question is the sort of political spectacle that draws a crowd because it’s interesting and because it’s especially hypocritical for the senator to ask. Sanders, Moore, and Warren are incredibly wealthy, beneficiaries of the crony capitalist systems they condemn.
Sanders became rich in the House and later the Senate by railing against the wealthy. After his failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, he cashed out with a book titled Our Revolution. He raked in $795,000 for the deal, according to Senate financial disclosures.
Unlike Sanders, Warren was already rich when she came to the Senate. The female progressive firebrand earned her money as a Harvard Law School professor. Her estimated worth is between $3.7 million and $10 million.
To his credit, Moore made his money through his filmmaking. Documentaries like “Capitalism: A Love Story” made him a millionaire. Because Moore hasn’t taken a government paycheck, his net worth isn’t known exactly, but estimates range as high as $50 million.
Anyone watching the panel might wonder whether running for office or filming a series of documentaries is the way to get rich. The median family income, according to the Census Bureau, in 2016 was just $59,039.
