Insights: Why Egg prices are rising by 40 percent or more, and feds bribe the states


Regs hurt eggs. Regulations that took effect January 1st are hitting your food budget.

It’s not the federal government but California that decided chickens deserve more rights. Anybody selling eggs there must double the usual size of cages used for egg-laying hens, giving them more living space.

Because they have such a huge market share, California’s new requirements impact the egg market nationwide. Egg prices have hit all-time highs, rising by a third last year even before the new law kicked-in.

Animal rights activists persuaded California voters to give more rights to chickens. Now they’re working on similar laws for other farm animals.

Maybe they’ll decide that pig sty’s must be free of mud. Or that dairy cows should only be milked by farmers with warm hands.

When you shell out more for eggs, remember that government is the reason why.

Elsewhere in the news, governors and mayors constantly are bribed with federal money. So are legislators, city council members and other lawmakers.

Over 1,100 federal programs offer big money if state and local officials will change their policies to run things the way that Washington wants them run. Each year $640-billion is provided as grants to change health care, housing, education, transportation, environmental policies and lots more—to do things the Washington way.

These billions are not free money, although some people pretend that it is.

The money comes from us—through taxes and the national debt loaded on our children. Washington sends back a fraction of it, with huge strings attached.

This corrupts the way America was originally designed to work. And the federal bribery will continue for as long as we let it go on.