Letter to the editor: Rural Vermonters call Bernie ‘hypocrite’

To the editor:

We are submitting this letter as longtime Vermont voters and taxpayers and property owners.

While U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is supposed to serve us Vermonters as our elected senator, he is spending his time and money in Iowa. When we heard he was paying protestors to stir up trouble outside Congressman Zach Nunn’s office, we weren’t surprised.

Sen, Sanders often focuses and spends his time fueling political drama to hype up and distort irrelevant issues rather than to address the real, multiple challenges facing the people of Vermont.

Vermont is hurting for many reasons. We are dealing with a housing crisis, an opioid epidemic, unaffordable living costs and shrinking opportunities for working families.

We are being sued by the U.S. government for our state’s sanctuary status and harboring illegal aliens as well as other violations of federal law on environmental matters.

Our dairy farms, once the pride of our state, are closing down at an alarming rate. Main Streets around the state are struggling due to crime and the homeless. In rural communities like ours, property taxes and public school costs are out of control, while the taxpayers who are paying the bills are forgotten and unrepresented.

These problems won’t be addressed or solved when our leaders like Bernie are too busy with the out-of-state attacking of an Iowa Congressman.

Bernie apparently thinks funding theatrical stunts halfway across the country are more important than working for Vermonters. It is not just conservatives in Vermont who are fed up with government leftists and Marxists like Bernie Sanders.

Lifelong Democrats and Independents are questioning what Bernie has ever accomplished for Vermonters in all his years in government. He seems to be working just for the cameras, his personal fame and his personal agenda. He can’t be bothered to pay attention to the real-life struggles of the people in Vermont he is supposed to be serving.

While Bernie lectures others on inequality and corporate greed, let’s remember he became a millionaire as a professional politician on the government payroll. We wonder how. Having no experience with private sector employment and/or business, Bernie has proven himself to be economically illiterate.

Bernie’s recent performance on his “Oligarchy Tour” is especially laughable. Bernie is well known, wealthy and politically powerful, so it seems that “Bernie the Oligarch” is speaking out and protesting against himself.

Let’s remember, Bernie used to speak out negatively against millionaires until he became a millionaire. Then he changed and now speaks out and criticizes billionaires. What a hypocrite!

Bernie is failing Vermonters. Knowing his record, we voted for his opponent, Gerald Malloy, hoping to elect a senator we could send to Washington to truly represent us.

Since Bernie is our senator, he is accountable to us as his constituents. It’s not Bernie’s job to bankroll out-of-state protests. It’s especially sad that he unethically pays for fake, astro-turf protesters trying to fool people.

Bernie was sent to Washington to represent the best interests of Vermonters — he has forgotten that. It’s time to focus on the state and people of Vermont, Bernie!

Dale and Nancy Gassett
Windham County, Vermont