It is becoming an iconic photo, not only for the memes but for the little story behind the mittens.
The mittens captured the imagination of so many that his campaign store is coming up with a crewneck for sale.
And they are donating 100% of proceeds to Meals on Wheels Vermont which is laudable, but we hope some of those meals are sent to Jen Ellis, the woman who knitted the mittens. Why is that?
The Vermont school teacher who made Bernie Sanders’ mittens, featured in the most recent viral meme, said she had to stop making them after the federal government taxed her too much.
“People have been contacting me thinking that they can get mittens, and actually they can’t. I don’t have any more, and I don’t have much of a mitten business anymore because it really wasn’t worth it,” Jen Ellis explained to Slate. “Independent crafters get really taken for a ride by the federal government. We get taxed to the nth degree, and it wasn’t really worth it pursuing that as a business, even as a side hustle.”
Woman Behind Bernie Sanders’ Iconic Mittens Quit Making Them Because High Taxes Killed Her Business
There is a lesson there somewhere, but apparently she missed it because she still loves Bernie and what he represents.
Oy!
Sigh.
I still remember the campaign promises of “send your tax return in on a postcard.”
The complexity of tax codes is expensive and annoying to deal with, but it’s only half the issue. You can have a tax code that is extremely simple, with rates that are obscenely high. And of course complexity is useful to the government in an Ayn Rand sense.
You see, the poor woman who cannot afford to run her business because of taxation believes that Bernie will actually lower her taxes, or remove them altogether.
That is how socialism gets voted in. Greedy people who want the perks of living in a wealthy society, but do not want to pay for those perks vote in the candidate that promises to make someone else pay for them.