![Bill Cosby arrives for his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., Wednesday, June 7, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)]({"default":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BBCfcWB.img?h=65&w=136&m=6&q=60&u=t&o=t&l=f&x=1321&y=694"})
- Trump pitched solar-powered border wall that would 'pay for itself'One of President Donald Trump’s biggest campaign promises has yet to come to fruition. But Trump has a new idea for the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico that might help him keep his promise. Susana Victoria Perez (@susana_vp) has more.
Veuer
- Silk Road or tax haven? China's new trade zoneOn the border of China and Kazakhstan, an international free trade zone has become a showpiece of Chinese President Xi Jinping's signature "Belt and Road" Initiative to boost global trade and commerce by improving infrastructure and connectivity. But as Graham Mackay reports, Horgos, the youngest city of China's new Silk Road, is not all it seems.
Reuters
- 9 jobs that are quickly disappearing in the USThese nine jobs could be on their way out, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' occupational outlook data.
Business Insider
Trump pitched solar-powered border wall that would 'pay for itself'
Veuer0:58Silk Road or tax haven? China's new trade zone
Reuters1:489 jobs that are quickly disappearing in the US
Business Insider2:23GE factory jobs move from Wisconsin to Canada
CNN Money4:31What gas inventories say about oil supply and demand
Bloomberg2:50Hyperloop One goes from London to Edinburgh in 50 minutes
Wochit Tech0:59Michelle Obama tells Apple: You won't get my money unless you include more women
CNBC0:43How charities need to change to end poverty
The Wall Street Journal.2:25
Caesars Entertainment seeing growth in Las Vegas
Fox Business4:33Smart tap aims to serve 'perfect' beer
BBC News1:59Here's where Americans say they waste the most money
CNBC0:47Uber's no good, very bad year so far
The Washington Post2:36Amazon discounts Prime for welfare and food stamps recipients
Reuters0:59Are there 50,000 new coal jobs as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt claimed?
The Washington Post1:075 online mistakes that are costing you money
The Wall Street Journal.1:43New Supreme Court case could reshape cellphone privacy laws
Newsy0:40
The White House proposal to overhaul the U.S. food stamp program — and the deep cuts it would make to benefits for the poorest households — has sparked public outrage on both sides of the aisle. But there's another change tucked into the proposal that businesses say caught them off guard — and could wind up costing them more than $2 billion.
Quotes in the article
That provision is a new fee that the White House wants to charge retailers that accept food stamps, which is now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The Office of Management and Budget said the fee would be assessed when stores sign up and would require renewal after five years. The budget office said the amount would depend on the size and type of retailer, but the president's budget estimates that the fee would generate $2.4 billion in revenue over the next decade.
An OMB official described the fee as "modest" and "reasonable," emphasizing that some large retailers redeem a billion dollars or more in food stamp benefits each year.
"Although a small number of stores may choose to leave the program rather than pay the fee, we do not expect that this will affect access to authorized stores," the official said.
The proposal surprised the grocery industry, which is already fighting to block the controversial border adjustment tax on Capitol Hill. That measure would lower the cost of exports but raise the price of imports and has been widely opposed by chain retailers. Trump's food stamp fee, however, would fall squarely on supermarkets.
Grocers oppose the "flawed policy of imposing fees on food retailers in order to reduce the cost of the federal government's nutrition assistance benefits to the most needy in our society," said Leslie G. Sarasin, president of the Food Marketing Institute, which represents the industry.
Changes hit congressional opposition
Beyond the new fee, the Trump administration is proposing $191 billion in cuts over the next decade to the food stamp program. The U.S. budget office said the reductions would come from tightening the work requirement to qualify for the benefits, but said the details would be left up to individual states. The administration also expects states to make up some of the lost funding.
Load Error
The existing system "is a formula for waste and growth rates and costs that are simply unsustainable," Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said during testimony on Capitol Hill last month. "The total spending should not go down. Or if it does, it goes down because of efficiencies and not because of reductions."
But the proposed changes are already running into obstacles on Capitol Hill — even among Republicans. Rep. Michael Conaway of Texas and Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, the chairmen of the House and Senate agriculture committees, have signaled they would fight the measure.
"We need to take a look at our nutrition assistance programs to ensure that they are helping the most vulnerable in our society," they said in a statement.
Food stamps accounted for about 5.8 percent of the estimated $669 billion in annual sales at grocery stores, according to the Food Marketing Institute. But for some retailers, it accounts for a much larger share of revenue. Walmart (WMT) is the largest supermarket in the country, and retail analyst Craig Johnson of Customer Growth Partners estimates it rings up $16 billion in food stamp sales each year. That accounts for about 23 percent of federal spending on food stamps.
Walmart declined to comment. But after the government restricted food stamp benefits in 2013, the company reported a 0.9 percent hit to its quarterly grocery sales.
"They may be calling it out as an excuse for underperformance," Johnson said. "But it will be a small marginal impact."
Walmart is a massive retailer that can weather those small hits, but grocers overall operate on notoriously thin margins. Smaller stores — particularly the bodegas and independent retailers that serve poor neighborhoods — would likely feel more pain.
"Certainly, they would see it in their bottom line," said Brian Lang of The Food Trust, a Pennsylvania nonprofit. Lang directs a campaign to make healthy food more accessible. "Implementing cuts to that extent are going to have stark consequences for retailers, especially in low-income communities."