Bernie Sanders faces pressure over proposed ‘wealth tax’ at heated Fox News town hall

Bernie Sanders took the stage at a fiery Fox News town hall in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on Monday, and sparks flew almost immediately, as Sanders defiantly refused to explain why he would not voluntarily pay the massive new 52-percent “wealth tax” that he advocated imposing on the nation’s richest individuals.

“We’ll get through this together,” Sanders said at one point, as tensions flared.

Sanders later admitted outright that “you’re going to pay more in taxes” if he became president. Just minutes before the town hall began, Sanders released ten years of his tax returns, which he acknowledged showed that he had been “fortunate” even as he pushed for a more progressive tax system.

According to the returns, Sanders and his wife paid a 26 percent effective tax rate on $561,293 in income, and made more than $1 million in both 2016 and 2017.

But pressed by anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum as to why he was holding onto his wealth rather than refusing deductions or writing a check to the Treasury Department, Sanders began laughing dismissively and, in an apparent non sequitur, asked why MacCallum didn’t donate her salary. (“I didn’t suggest a wealth tax,” MacCallum responded.)

Asked whether Sanders’ success — and subsequent decision to hold onto his cash — wasn’t an implicit endorsement of the capitalist system he has repeatedly called dysfunctonal, Sanders rejected the notion out of hand.

“When you wrote the book and made the money, isn’t that the definition of capitalism and the American dream?” Baier asked, referring to Sanders’ bestselling 2016 memoir “Our Revolution.”

“No,” Sanders replied flatly, after a pregnant pause. “What we want is a country in which everyone has an opportunity. … A lot of people don’t have a college degree. A lot of people are not United States senators.”

More From FoxNews: