Discussion of economic policy in this country has become an egg toss.
Trump campaigned with the promise to bring prices down on day one. He felt the political heat after taking office as egg prices spiked in February, and turned that heat on Brooke Rollins, his new Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She let her dear leader know she was on it:
“My very first briefing—I think I was voted on around noon yesterday [Feb. 13], I was sworn in around 3, took a couple pictures, and then I immediately went into a briefing on avian flu and egg prices with the team at USDA.”
By February 26th, USDA announced its plan to bring egg prices back down, but tempered egg-spectations by forecasting a 40% increase in 2025. Trump turned up the heat by featuring egg prices in his address to the joint session of Congress on March 4th:
“Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control. The egg price is out of control, and we’re working hard to get it back down. Secretary, do a good job on that.”
As prices continued to rise, some Democrats thought a spotlight on egg prices would speak to America’s grocery shoppers. So they turned up the volume on egg prices. Trump then reposted an article telling everybody to “shut up about the price of eggs.”
Well, here we are a week later and egg prices are down due to waning bird flu and reduced demand in March. So no surprise to see this post from Mike Lawler today:
High five to Mike, I guess?
I tend to agree with the University of Iowa student who commented on the politicization of egg prices:
“It just shows a complete lack of seriousness to actually add nuance or address issues that are very real and affecting common people in a way that has any merit,” he said. “It just turns into whenever one party is not in control, they’re not letting the crisis go to waste, right? They’re using that as a cudgel to cast blame on whoever’s in charge.”
Another worthy read: Who Will Take Credit When Egg Prices Fall?
And for you eggheads out there: USDA Egg Markets Overview
As for me, I’m with Trump on this one. Shut up about the egg prices. Maybe focus on the likely impact of Trump’s trade war?
Rule of Lawler 