By Charlie Kirk
Democrats are positively giddy about the price of eggs.
A dozen currently costs around $7, up from just $2 in October. For liberals who resent President Trump’s overwhelming electoral mandate, that’s sufficient proof that these backward, “extreme” MAGA Republicans didn’t know what they were voting for.
“Remember when Donald Trump promised he’d lower grocery prices and the cost of living?” Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) whined in a recent X post. “I guess he’s been too busy dismantling the federal government and compromising our national security to get to it.”
There are three problems with this line of attack.
First, the high price of eggs is in no way President Trump’s fault.
Almost all the increase took place during Biden’s final months in office. Why? Because in response to a bird flu outbreak, his administration decided to reenact the Godfather baptism scene with America’s chickens. (CHARLIE KIRK: President Trump’s Shock-And-Awe Strategy Is The Way To Overwhelm The Left)
“The Biden administration and the Department of Agriculture directed the mass killing of more than 100 million chickens,” Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt explained, “which has led to a lack of chicken supply in this country, therefore a lack of egg supply, which is leading to the shortage.”
And why carry out such a massacre? Because the Department of Agriculture compensates poultry farmers for eliminating flocks that have been exposed to bird flu, but offers no compensation if the birds die from the disease. This creates an incentive to slaughter more chickens than may be strictly necessary. President Trump’s team is working on solving this problem they inherited, but raising more chickens to lay more eggs takes time.
Policies like these reveal how federal regulators prioritize the wants of industry lobbyists over the needs of American consumers. The price of eggs isn’t an argument against Trump — it’s evidence of why his proposed bureaucratic reforms are so badly needed.
Second, Trump voters weren’t just mad about the price of eggs. They were mad about inflation in general. And they had every right to be.
Inflation during Trump’s first stint in office never hit three percent and remained under two percent for over half his term. Under Biden, it was less than two percent for just one month (his first month in office) and hit a high of 9.1% in June 2022. The rate dipped back below three percent during his last few months as president, but that doesn’t mean prices went down — they just went up less quickly.
Biden could easily have prevented most of the inflation that took place during his term. All he had to do was not ram through trillions of dollars in wasteful spending with his unnecessary American Rescue Plan and his paradoxically named Inflation Reduction Act.
And third, Trump is already hard at work to deliver savings for American families. Leavitt told reporters at one of her first briefings that President Trump will adopt a “whole-of-government economic approach” that includes energy abundance, tax cuts, deregulation, and a host of other measures. Trump’s promise to “drill, baby, drill” will bring down the price of energy, lowering prices across the entire economy, and will put more money in Americans’ pockets.
Savings will also come from sources that are less flashy but no less significant. Under Biden, the price of a median home more than doubled and rents skyrocketed. While Biden and his Department of Justice tried to ridiculously point the blame on pricing software, truly fixing this problem means getting inflation under control and increasing the housing supply. This will require years of new construction and the cooperation of state and local authorities. However, in the meantime, there’s plenty of low-hanging fruit.
Consider refinancing title insurance, which homebuyers are forced to subsidize for lenders. Title insurance typically runs between 0.5% and 1% of the home price (no small amount!) and is included in closing costs as a one-time payment. A new pilot program — that Biden did everything in his power to kill at the title insurance lobby’s behest — allows automated title risk assessments for some refinances, increasing transparency and competition in a market that’s been stagnant for too long. Savings are already over $1,500 for some households. That may not sound like much, but in an economy that’s left 37% of American adults unable to afford a $400 emergency, it could make all the difference. The DOGE-minded Trump administration should do everything it can to keep this program moving.
On the day he took office, Trump ordered “the heads of all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief, consistent with applicable law, to the American people” and demanded a report on their progress within 30 days. When that report hits his desk on February 19, egg prices might still be high, but I expect the rest of the news to be good and to only get better as Trump’s second term progresses.
President Trump’s administration is relentlessly turning over every rock to unleash policies that will put downward pressure on prices. If the past is prologue, real wages rose over $6,000 during Trump’s first term while falling some $2,000 under Biden’s.
Reversing four years of economic malpractice will take time to reverse, but the building blocks of America’s next great low-inflation, high-wage growth boom have already been laid — and soon enough, so too will the eggs.
