In a classic move by those on the left — democrats, socialists, and everyone in between with seemingly no grasp of what sparks inflation — championed the Biden administration’s move in 2021 to increase food stamp spending by the most in history, hiking benefits by an average of 27%. 

In 2022, the Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) spending hit a record high of $119 billion, a sixfold increase over the last two decades. In 2019, taxpayers were on the hook for $4.5 billion per month on food stamp benefits. By December 2022, monthly food stamp spending soared to $11 billion. 

According to findings from the government watchdog Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), previewed by Fox News, the administration’s massive expansion of food stamp benefits could be responsible for a 15% spike in grocery store prices. 

FGA called Biden’s rush to increase SNAP benefits an “unlawful expansion—which bypassed Congress—will cost taxpayers $250 billion over the next decade and has heavily contributed to soaring grocery prices.”  

“Congress should repeal President Biden’s unlawful food stamp expansion and ensure this type of executive overreach cannot happen again. In doing so, Congress could save taxpayers more than $193 billion over the next decade,” it added. 

The good news is the emergency allotments expired earlier this year, but food stamp spending remains $8.6 billion in March. The Congressional Budget Office estimates SNAP spending will cost taxpayers nearly $1.1 trillion over the next decade. 

“USDA cooked their books to hike food stamp benefits by 27% — the largest permanent increase in program history. And they bypassed Congress to do it,” said Jonathan Ingram, Vice President of Policy and Research at the Foundation for Government Accountability.

Ingram noted, “Data show the Biden administration’s overreach led to massive spikes in grocery prices. They’re feeding inflation, not stopping hunger.”

The index for food at home (groceries) has skyrocketed ever since Biden increased SNAP benefits. 

As food inflation soared, Biden’s officials, seemingly detached from economic reality, pointed the finger at food companies for raging food inflation. 

Remember this?

If FGA is correct, this is another sign that ‘Bidenomics’ has been a disaster for low/mid-tier consumers drowning in inflation. 

It’s one giant EBT party…

This post was originally published at Zero Hedge

There was a shocking number in today’s latest monthly US Budget Deficit report. No, it wasn’t that US government outlays unexpectedly soared 15% to $646 billion in June, up almost $100 billion from a year ago…

… while tax receipts slumped 9.2% from $461 billion to $418 billion, resulting in a TTM government receipt drop of over 7.3%, the biggest since June 2020 when the US was reeling from the covid lockdown recession; in fact never have before tax receipts suffered such a big drop without the US entering a recession.

Needless to say, surging government outlays coupled with shrinking tax revenues meant that in June, the US budget deficit nearly tripled from $89 billion a year ago to $228 billion, far greater than the consensus estimate of $175 billion. One can only imagine which Ukrainian billionaire oligarch’s money laundering bank account is currently enjoying the benefits of that unexpected incremental $50 billion US deficit hole: we know for a fact that the FBI will never get to the bottom of that one, since they can’t even figure out who dumped a bunch of blow inside the White House – the most protected and surveilled structure in the entire world.

And with the monthly deficits coming in higher than expected and also far higher than a year ago, it is also not at all surprising that the cumulative deficit 9 months into the fiscal year is already the 3rd highest on record, surpassed only by the crisis years of 2020 and 2021: at $1.393 trillion, the fiscal 2022 YTD deficit is already up 170% compared to the same period last year. 

Again, while sad, none of the above numbers are surprising: they merely confirm that the US is on an ever faster-track to fiscal death, but not before the Fed is forced to monetize the debt once again (one wonders what financial crisis the Jekyll Island folks will invoke this time to greenlight the next multi-trillion QE).

No, the one number that was truly shocking was found all the way on page 9, deep inside Table 3 of the latest Treasury Monthly Statement: the only highlighted below, and which shows that in the 9 months of the current fiscal year, the US has already accumulated a record $652 billion in gross debt interest.

This number was more than 25% higher compared to the Interest Expense payment for the comparable period a year ago, which amounted to $521 billion.

Soaring interest rates, driven by the panicked Fed’s scramble to undo its epic policy failure of 2020 and 2021 when the Fed kept rates at zero for far too long while injecting trillions into various asset bubbles, have been the key driver of the deficit, with the Federal Reserve boosting its benchmark rate by 5% since it began hiking in March last year. Five-year Treasury yields are now about 3.96%, versus 1.35% at the start of last year. As lower-yielding securities mature, the Treasury faces steady increases in the rates it pays on outstanding debt: that’s right – even when the Fed starts cutting rates, due to the delay of rolling over maturing debt, actual interest payments will keep rising for the foreseeable future.

For context, the weighted average interest for total outstanding debt at the end of June was only 2.76%, a level that’s not been surpassed since January 2012, according to the Treasury. That’s up from 1.80% a year before, the department’s data show, and if the Fed indeed keeps rates “higher for longer”, the blended rate on the debt will surpass 4% in one year.

That would be a complete disaster for the US, and it would mean that interest payments on total US debt of $32.3 trillion would hit $1.3 trillion within 12 months, potentially making interest on the debt the single biggest US government expenditure and surpassing social security!

But we don’t even have to wait that long until the exploding interest on US government debt becomes a major talking point ahead of the coming presidential elections. According to the St Louis Fed’s FRED and the BEA, the interest payments by the Federal Government have now surpassed $900 billion for the first time ever, and within a quarter will hit probably rise above $1 trillion, a historic benchmark that will probably begin the countdown to the US Minsky Moment.

One of the most incompetent puppets in the Biden admin (and there are countless), Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, has played down concerns about higher rates. She has instead flagged that the ratio of interest payments to GDP, after adjustment for inflation, remains historically low. The problem with Yellen’s argument is that GDP will crater after the next recession (which will also spark the next financial crisis, one which Yellen will not live to see), but US debt will never again drop in either absolute or relative terms, as the good folks at the CBO have been so kind to make clear to even such intellectual midgets as the former Fed chairwoman.

In short, the endgame has now arrived, and all the US can do now is rearrange the deck chairs.

This post was originally published at Zero Hedge

After self-destructing in the name of signaling virtue, Bud Light is looking at a permanent loss of nearly 25% of its business, according to Deutsche Bank analyst Mitch Collett in a recent Barron‘s article.

“We believe recent underperformance implies a permanent reduction in ABI’s U.S. business,” writes Collett, referring to Anheuser-Busch InBev, the parent company of Bud Light. “Our proprietary survey data suggests these headwinds are likely to fade even if we do not expect the U.S. business ever to fully recover from its current challenges.”

Data gathered by Deutsche Bank suggests that 24% of Bud Light consumers no longer purchase the brand, while another 18% are buying less of it.

“Taken together, our survey data shows that Bud Light as a brand faces significant challenges—particularly with older consumers. However, we believe the forward-looking data sets imply that the challenges will at least partially fade,” wrote Collett, who actually upgraded shares of AB InBev to “buy” from “hold,” with a new price target of $65.92, up from $64.83.

That said, another analyst, Evercore’s Robert Ottenstein, said Bud Light will “permanently lose” between 15 and 20% of its volume, after which “declines will resume at about the average rate of the prior 10 years.”

“Budweiser will also see a similar pattern, with consumers lost in 2022 not coming back,” he continued in a note highlighted by Yahoo Finance in which quotes Collett as saying Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch are “at the end of the tunnel” of the controversy.

In May, HSBC downgraded the stock to “hold” over its “Bud Light crisis,” adding that there may be “deeper problems” at the company.

“Is ABI’s leadership getting the brand culture transformation right? It’s mixed,” he said. “At Ambev, we think the answer is ‘yes’; in the U.S., we think it’s ‘no.’ The way this Bud Light crisis came about a month ago, management’s response to it and the loss of unprecedented volume and brand relevance raises many questions.”

More via the Epoch Times;

Since its ill-fated promotional exercise in early April with Mulvaney, a transgender TikTok influencer, Bud Light has seen its weekly sales decline. Recent data from Bump Williams Consulting and Nielsen IQ show that for the week ending on June 10, Bud Light’s year-over-year sales have declined by 26.8 percent, representing the worst week so far.

And for the month of May, Constellation Brands-owned Modelo Especial was the No. 1-selling brand in the United States, outpacing Bud Light, which fell to No. 2, industry data show.

Bump Williams, chief of the eponymous consulting company, told the New York Post on June 21: “This was a tough week for Bud Light and other beer brands” that are owned by Anheuser-Busch, including Budweiser. Sales of Budweiser were down by 10 percent, Natural Light was down by 2.3 percent, and Michelob Ultra was down by 2.4 percent.

Anheuser-Busch’s CEO, Michel Doukeris, told investors last month that he believes that online “misinformation” was the primary reason for the sales numbers, and he asserted that it was just “one can” that was produced with Mulvaney’s face on it and appeared to deny that there was a partnership. However, Mulvaney posted on social media that there was a partnership.

The can drew the ire of multiple celebrities and conservative influencers on Twitter. Some suggested that consumers boycott the brand in a bid to send a message to corporations who may be pursuing a “woke” leftist agenda.

An executive with Anheuser-Busch recently spoke out about the boycott as he got an award during the Cannes Lions International Festival in southern France.

“It’s tough to see the controversial and divisive debates that have been happening in the U.S. in the last couple of weeks involving lots of brands and companies, including and especially Bud Light,” Anheuser-Busch’s global chief marketing officer, Marcel Marcondes, told the Cannes Lions International Festival, according to an Ad Age report. “It’s tough exactly because what we do is all about bringing people together.”

Marketing Pivot

With summer officially starting last week, Bud Light pivoted and launched a new promotional campaign. But that, too, was derided on social media, with some demanding that the company apologize for its promotional efforts with Mulvaney.

Responding to the latest ad, podcast host Liz Wheeler wrote on Twitter that the company was trying to whitewash the past two months of controversy.

“None of this is funny until & unless you apologize for using Dylan Mulvaney—a man pretending to be a woman—as your spokesperson. It’s insulting that you think an ad about summer will make us forget our principles. The boycott continues,” she wrote in a post.

Anheuser-Busch didn’t respond to a request from The Epoch Times for comment by press time.

This post was originally published at Zero Hedge