Here’s the Scoop: Fun Facts for National Ice Cream Day
When President Ronald Reagan in 1984 designated the month of July as National Ice Cream Month and declared the third Sunday of July as National Ice Cream Day, he probably never could have foreseen a time when flavors of the treat included Pork Rind, Strawberry Durian or Squid.
Ice cream shops around the country will be celebrating their special day again this Sunday, July 19. Carvel stores will be offering a buy-one-get-one-free deal on any size or flavor of soft-serve cones. Friendly’s is celebrating its 80th birthday this weekend, with participating stores also offering buy-one-get-one-free deals. Baskin-Robbins is offering a free upgrade to waffle cones with double scoops during the entire month of July. It also will offer 31 percent off all its ice cream sundaes on Friday, July 31.
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Those chains offer a wide variety of flavors, but probably nothing quite as exotic as the OddFellows Ice Cream Co. in New York City, known for formulations loaded with unusual ingredients: Edamame, Chorizo Caramel Swirl, Cornbread and Maple Bacon Pecan. OddFellows co-owner Mohan Kumar says National Ice Cream Day will be just a regular Sunday for him and his stores: “It’s a beautiful day for ice cream every day.”
As you consider indulging in a frozen snack, here are some fun facts to fuel our red hot passion for ice cream:
Who Screams for Ice Cream: California, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Texas and New York are the states that consume the most ice cream. California also produces the most ice cream—over 142,000 gallons every year. About 10.3 percent of all the milk produced by U.S. dairy farmers is used to make ice cream. The five most popular brands in the U.S. are private labels, followed by Blue Bell, Haagen-Dazs, Breyers and Ben & Jerry’s. According to the International Dairy Foods Association, vanilla is America’s favorite flavor of ice cream, followed by chocolate. And how’s this for being ice cream crazy? Ben & Jerry’s employees get three free pints a day. They also get a free gym membership.
Hard Facts About Soft Serve: Despite many headlines to the contrary, it does not look like former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher invented soft-serve ice cream before she became known as the Iron Lady. The honor instead goes to Tom Carvel of Carvel ice cream or Dairy Queen co-founder J. F. McCullough. In Carvel’s case, his ice cream truck got a flat tire in Hartsdale, New York, in 1934. As the ice cream started to melt, he noticed its soft, creamy consistency and began selling it right from the truck. Two years later, he opened his first Carvel shop at the site where the truck first broke down.
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Why We’re All Coneheads: Italo Marchiony, an Italian immigrant, was granted a patent for waffle-like ice cream cups in New York City in December 1903. But he may not be the father of the cones we enjoy today. As the story goes, Arnold Fornachou, an ice cream vendor at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, ran out of dishes. His neighbor, a Syrian man, was selling crisp, Middle Eastern pastries called Zalabias. When rolled up, the waffle-like Zalabias made a perfect cone to hold the ice cream. The International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers and the International Dairy Foods Association credit Ernest A. Hamwi, the pastry maker, with creating the cone, but others have also claimed credit — including Abe Doumar, another Syrian immigrant at the 1904 fair who would go on to produce the first machine to mass-produce ice cream waffle cones.
Deficit Hits $738.6 Billion in First 8 Months of Fiscal Year
The U.S. budget deficit grew to $738.6 billion in the first eight months of the current fiscal year – an increase of $206 billion, or 38.8%, over the deficit recorded during the same period a year earlier. Bloomberg’s Sarah McGregor notes that the big increase occurred despite a jump in tariff revenues, which have nearly doubled to $44.9 billion so far this fiscal year. But that increase, which contributed to an overall increase in revenues of 2.3%, was not enough to make up for the reduced revenues from the Republican tax cuts and a 9.3% increase in government spending.
Tweet of the Day: Revenues or Spending?
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee and one of the authors of the 2017 Republican tax overhaul, told The Washington Post’s Heather Long Tuesday that the budget deficit is driven by excess spending, not a shortfall in revenues in the wake of the tax cuts. The Wall Street Journal’s Kate Davidson provided some inconvenient facts for Brady’s claim in a tweet, pointing out that government revenues as a share of GDP have fallen significantly since 2015, while spending has remained more or less constant.
Chart of the Day: The Decline in IRS Audits
Reviewing the recent annual report on tax statistics from the IRS, Robert Weinberger of the Tax Policy Center says it “tells a story of shrinking staff, fewer audits, and less customer service.” The agency had 22% fewer personnel in 2018 than it did in 2010, and its enforcement budget has fallen by nearly $1 billion, Weinberger writes. One obvious effect of the budget cuts has been a sharp reduction in the number of audits the agency has performed annually, which you can see in the chart below.
Number of the Day: $102 Million
President Trump’s golf playing has cost taxpayers $102 million in extra travel and security expenses, according to an analysis by the left-leaning HuffPost news site.
“The $102 million total to date spent on Trump’s presidential golfing represents 255 times the annual presidential salary he volunteered not to take. It is more than three times the cost of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that Trump continually complains about. It would fund for six years the Special Olympics program that Trump’s proposed budget had originally cut to save money,” HuffPost’s S.V. Date writes.
Date says the White House did not respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment.
Americans See Tax-Paying as a Duty
The IRS may not be conducting audits like it used to, but according to the agency’s Data Book for 2018, most Americans still believe it’s not acceptable to cheat on your taxes. About 67% of respondents to an IRS opinion survey “completely agree” that it’s a civic duty to pay “a fair share of taxes,” and another 26% “mostly agree,” bringing the total in agreement to over 90%. Accounting Today says that attitude has been pretty consistent over the last decade.
