Trump Admin Food-Aid Halt Likely Unlawful, Judges Say

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00:00More than 40 million Americans are getting food assistance in what is supposed to be one of the

00:07richest or the richest country in the world. What does that mean about our economy? What does that

00:11tell you about our economy? Well, that's kind of a political question. Obviously, economically,

00:15it doesn't suggest that we're allocating our resources in the best way. This is a big,

00:24I think SNAP's been a big political football in Washington, and it's even more so now because

00:30it's in the middle of this government shutdown argument. But the Republicans have said that

00:35along with Medicaid, they want people who get these benefits, they should work. But 98% of them

00:43or 96% of them, I think, are children in school or caregivers or retired people. So that doesn't

00:51really work either. So it's kind of, again, it comes down to what kind of country do you want

01:02to have and how do you believe that you get there? Because there's certainly an argument that

01:06Republicans make that people should make their own way or that this should be handled privately by

01:12charities and things like that. Well, that's what I wanted to talk about, Mike, is who picks up the

01:16slack in a situation like this. I have family all over the country, and we have many families out

01:21there, group texts, where we're talking about everything. And my mom and my sister brought up

01:25something interesting, and it's the idea that on Halloween, people are thinking about making

01:29available foodstuffs, like shelf-stable things that they can give away to people who might experience

01:36hardship if they are losing SNAP benefits. They're talking about schools in different parts of the

01:41country, and these are local issues, but it's also a national issue. Having parents step in to help

01:46other students who would traditionally get SNAP assistance, and instead, the parents at the

01:53school or even people who don't even go to the school are bringing food to the schools. It seems

01:57like people are stepping in. Yeah, it's been kind of a nationwide thing, and a number of states are

02:02saying they will do their best to cover as much as they can. The administration has said those states

02:07will not be reimbursed. And of course, they don't have the money to fund the entire program. All this

02:14SNAP money is federal money, so they've got to take it from somewhere else, and they won't have

02:19enough for a whole month. But there is certainly a rising effort to take care of it. We're going to

02:25get to the Fed, I promise, in a second. But this conversation really has been thinking about the

02:28way that a government dollar that goes out has this multiplier effect when it is spent by somebody

02:35buying something. Do we have any research on that? Do you have anything on the top of your head,

02:38Mike, about a SNAP benefit and to what extent that ripples through the economy? And the absence of that

02:43would actually cause some sort of pullback? Well, it would. Just basic economics, if the

02:49dollar is not spent, it doesn't cycle through the economy. I don't have any specific numbers on

02:55SNAP itself, but again, it's $8 billion a month, roughly. So that's money that comes from the

03:04taxpayers in one place or another, or comes from selling bonds to Wall Street, probably. And then

03:10that money goes through the economy, goes to the store, and the store then pays its suppliers who

03:16pay its workers and et cetera. I'm going to call an audible. We were going to talk to Nathan Dean

03:20after we were done with Mike, but because we're talking about SNAP and Americans and food benefits

03:25and the government shutdown, we do want to bring in Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Policy Analyst,

03:29Nathan Dean, into the conversation. And Mike, we're going to come back to you on the Fed. But Nathan,

03:33I'm assuming you're listening to us. I mean, Mike mentioned SNAP benefits are,

03:38I guess, a political football, if you will. What are your thoughts about this against this

03:43government back, you know, this government shutdown that it is impacting workers, it's impacting

03:48Americans? I mean, absolutely. I mean, this was one of the key pressure points of which would

03:54potentially bring Congress together on a deal. And obviously that didn't occur. But I will say is

03:59that there's open ideas, call them chit chats, as we go into next week, among some of the certain

04:04certain Democratic senators about this idea of reopening the government. Now, today's ruling

04:09most likely takes away a little bit of that pressure if the administration falls through

04:13and actually pays the benefits here. But from an investment point of view, I just point out here

04:18is that it's really Walmart, Kroger and Albertsons are the three equities that you should be looking at

04:23in terms of SNAP benefits. Walmart takes in about 25 percent of SNAP. Kroger and Albertsons around

04:28eight to six percent. So if this were to go into November, and I don't think it will,

04:32but if this were to go into late November, into December, those three equities in particular

04:37would be harmed by this decision or by the idea of not paying out SNAP benefits.

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