Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield made a case for Bernie Sanders in front of hundreds of students after they were arrested for protests at the U.S. Capitol.
Cohen and Greenfield were among approximately 300 people who were arrested over the weekend during the “Democracy Awakens” protests against corporate money in politics. The GW College Democrats hosted the founders on Monday night to talk about campaign finance reform.
Cohen and Greenfield have supported causes in the past, renaming their ice cream flavors to raise awareness about climate change and support the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, however this election cycle they are rallying support for a particular presidential candidate.
A candidate who will raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour.
At the GW event Cohen said, “money and politics are the root cause of most evil” and that “corporations are not people.”
He also made an easily debunkable statement. Cohen said Bernie Sanders is “fiscally responsible” and his proposals won’t “bankrupt the country.”
Fact: According to a tally by the Wall Street Journal, Sanders’ programs would cost $18 trillion over a decade. All but $3 trillion of that money would be spent on a government-run healthcare program which covers every American. The remainder would be spent rebuilding roads and bridges, expanding Social Security, and tuition-free public colleges. Sanders’ economic roadmap is anything but fiscally conservative. American Enterprise Institute analyst Kevin Hassett said the tax increases required to pay for the Sanders program would be “massively catastrophic.”
Cohen spoke during most of the event before the founders handed out free ice cream to attendees. Recently, Ben released a new flavor called “Bernie’s Yearning,” which includes a chocolate disk at the top of the pint which “represents the huge majority of economic gains that have gone to the top 1% since the end of the recession.”
An attendee and member of GW College Democrats said she was excited by the discussion about money’s role in politics and the free ice cream: “What’s not to like?”
