Posted on Wednesday, February 5, 2025

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by Andrew Shirley

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After four years of runaway inflation under Joe Biden, Democrats and some in the corporate media have just recognized that grocery prices are a serious problem for everyday Americans. But as Democrats attempt to pin blame for this crisis on President Donald Trump – who has been in office for less than three weeks – they are only further exposing how failed liberal policies led to high prices in the first place.

Democrats have latched on to the price of eggs in particular as they scramble to mount some sort of opposition to the early success of Trump’s second term. In a post on X late last month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stated, “President Trump owes American families some answers about what he is going to do about the high price of eggs that’s being exacerbated by Bird Flu.”

As conservative podcaster Stephen L. Miller was quick to note, Schumer never once complained about the price of eggs when Biden was in office. But other Democrats and legacy media outlets nonetheless took Schumer’s lead in attempting to manufacture a controversy over egg prices.

In an open letter to Trump, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, alongside 19 other Democrat legislators, attacked the president for focusing on “mass deportations” and not doing enough to address high grocery costs. Liberal bloggers like Brian Taylor Cohen, Brian Krassenstein, and Alex Cole joined in as well, blaming Trump for the high price of eggs and the overall high cost of living.

Indeed, egg prices are unusually high. According to the Consumer Price Index, “egg prices increased more than eight percent from November to December… the average cost of one dozen Grade A large eggs in December across the U.S. was $4.15, up from $2.52 at the start of 2024.” The Department of Agriculture also predicts that prices could increase as much as 20 percent over the next year and will “continue to experience volatile month-to-month changes.”

However, the Democrats’ line of attack seems misinformed at best and outright dishonest at worst. Schumer’s initial attack came only seven days into Trump’s second term. The price increases on eggs and everything else occurred when Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, was in office. In fact, as high as the price for a dozen eggs is now, it is still well below the record high of $4.82 reached in January 2023 under the Biden administration.

Moreover, the high cost of eggs, in particular, is a direct result of two Democrat policies.

First, so-called “cage-free” laws enacted by ten states mandate that chickens be allowed to move freely while producing eggs. Though proponents of such laws argue they make farming more humane, farms are also forced to use more land less efficiently, raising prices. While cage-free laws may be well-intentioned, they also have undeniably increased costs for egg production, costs which are then passed on to consumers. Several states are already considering repealing their cage-free laws.

Government policies on the bird flu are also to blame for rising egg prices. Bird flu cases have skyrocketed in the United States in recent years, and according to USDA rules, the entire flock must be destroyed if even a single chicken is found to have bird flu.

As a result, the Biden USDA ordered the culling of 100-150 million chickens. The additional costs of disposal and sanitation, as well as the time necessary to bring new egg-laying chickens into maturity, also caused a sharp supply crunch, which increased the overall price of eggs. Critics have argued that there are methods to prevent this mass killing of birds, which the Biden administration has refused to consider.

Notably, agriculture experts also believe cage-free laws dramatically increase the odds of bird flu transmission.

General inflation in every other part of the economy under Biden has also driven up the cost of eggs. From the electricity used to power chicken farms to the diesel fuel used to transport eggs to supermarkets, everything in the United States is more expensive thanks to trillions of dollars in frivolous spending over the past four years.

Trump has already taken decisive action to reduce this spending, including creating the Department of Government Efficiency, which has so far saved the government tens of millions of dollars per day on average. Trump also declared a “national energy emergency” on his first day in office, taking the first step to deliver on his promise of increasing domestic oil production – a move that will ultimately bring down the cost of fuel and, by extension, everything (including eggs) that is transported on trucks, trains, planes, and ships.

But the reality is that spending has a delayed impact on inflation, meaning that Americans can expect elevated prices for the immediate future until Trump’s policies have time to take effect. Most Americans seem to understand this, a fact reflected in Trump’s record high net approval rating.

Democrats, meanwhile, seem content to have a talking point, disingenuous as it is, that at least rallies their base in opposition to Trump. But like the eggs they are so fixated on, that talking point looks to have an expiration date.

Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.