Tag: inflation

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin Launches Largest Deregulatory Effort in U.S. History to ‘Save Coal, Bring Down Cost of Living’

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin said it is “not a binary choice” to either protect the environment or grow the economy.

“We don’t have to just choose one,” he explained.

Joining Breitbart News Washington bureau chief Matt Boyle on the Breitbart News Saturday radio show, Zeldin went over his recent historic launch of the largest deregulatory effort in U.S. history and talked about the EPA’s sweeping deregulations to “save the coal industry” and “bring down the cost of living.” 

After announcing 31 deregulations on Wednesday, including the termination of the Biden administration’s “Environmental Justice and DEI arms of the agency (EJ/DEI),” Zeldin told Boyle, “Undoubtedly, we’re going to be able to create jobs, including inside the American auto sector.”

“We will bring down the cost of living. It’s going to be easier to heat your home, to purchase a vehicle, to operate a business,” the former New York congressman said, touting President Donald Trump’s economic plan. 

“A lot of Americans struggling to make ends meet want common sense back into the federal government, and we’re going to do our part at the EPA,” Zeldin continued. “So that’s why we made this announcement. It’s a lot of regulatory actions impacting the energy space. We want to make it easier for people to be able to access choice.”

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RFK Jr. Warns Against Vaccinating Chickens For Bird Flu

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advised against providing vaccines to poultry amid a bird flu outbreak that has caused a steep increase in egg prices in recent months.

In an interview with Fox News on March 11, Kennedy said his primary concern with providing shots to egg-laying chickens is that the vaccine doesn’t provide complete protection against avian influenza.

“All of my agencies advise against vaccination of birds because if you vaccinate with a leaky vaccine—in other words, a vaccine that does not provide sterilizing immunity, that does not absolutely protect against the disease—you turn those flocks into mutation factories,” he said in the interview.

It is “much more likely” to jump to other animals at that point, Kennedy said, adding that officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and Food and Drug Administration advised against vaccinating birds.

“It’s dangerous for human beings to vaccinate the birds,” he said.

Since an outbreak of bird flu in the United States started in 2022, millions of egg-laying hens have been culled to prevent the spread of the virus. Egg prices have skyrocketed as a result, increasing to $4.95 per dozen on average in January 2025, according to recent data.

“We’ve killed 166 million chickens. That’s why we have an egg crisis,” Kennedy told Fox’s Sean Hannity, adding that bird flu is not transmissible via eggs or food.

“Most of our scientists are against the culling operation. They think that we should be testing therapeutics on those flocks. They should isolate. You should let the disease go with them and identify the birds that survive, which are the birds that probably have a genetic inclination for immunity.”

The price for a dozen had consistently been about $2 for decades before the disease struck. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said recently that it expects egg prices to rise by 41 percent in 2025.

But the USDA reported last week that egg shortages are easing and wholesale prices are dropping, which might provide relief on the retail side before this year’s late Easter, which is three weeks later than last year’s. It said there had been no major bird flu outbreak for two weeks.

“Shoppers have begun to see shell egg offerings … becoming more reliable although retail price levels have yet to adjust and remain off-putting to many,” the agency wrote in a March 7 report.

As for bird flu spreading to people, the CDC has said the risk to the public remains low.

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Here’s How the Media Is Covering up Plunging Egg Prices

Earlier this week, we reported that the price of a dozen eggs, which had reached a record high of $8.17 in early March, had fallen by more than two dollars, now sitting well below the $7 average when President Trump took office in January. As I pointed out at the time, this was bad news for Democrats, who had hoped that sky-high egg prices would be the silver bullet to drive down Trump’s approval ratings and fuel a Democratic resurgence. But with egg prices continuing to drop, the left-wing media has now stepped in to claim that egg prices are still on the rise.

According to Trading Economics, the price of a dozen eggs is now below $5/dozen, lower than they were around Christmastime last year. But the mainstream media doesn’t want you to know that.

Reporting on the declining rate of inflation in February, ABC News didn’t report on the latest egg prices. Instead, the network declared, “Egg prices, however, a closely watched symbol of price increases, soared 58.8% in February compared to a year ago, accelerating from the previous month.”

They weren’t alone. 

“Egg Prices Are Still Surging, Hitting Consumers’ Wallets,” the New York Times claimed in a headline on Wednesday, even though egg prices were actually declining.

“Egg prices continued their upward climb in February despite some easing in overall inflation, further straining consumers seeking relief from rising prices in the grocery aisles,” the article noted, completely ignoring the sharp decline in March.

MarketWatch was no better.

The cost of eggs jumped a little more than 10% in February after a 15% increase in January — and prices are likely to remain high for a while.

The surge in egg prices stems from outbreaks of the avian flu that have resulted in millions of chickens being slaughtered. It takes at least several months for egg-laying chickens to repopulate.

Not only that, but Easter is just around the corner. It’s the biggest egg-selling period of the year and is likely to keep upward pressure on egg prices given the increased demand.

The Trump administration has announced its intention to lower the cost of eggs, but the effort is just getting under way, and it’s unclear whether and how it will work.

Yahoo! Finance also ignored the recent data to cover up the sharp decline in egg prices.

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Trump’s DOJ Launches Investigation Into Soaring Egg Prices

The Department of Justice under President Trump has officially launched an investigation into the staggering surge in egg prices, which is expected to rise by more than 40% in 2025.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the DOJ has sent letters to major egg producers, demanding they preserve documents related to their pricing discussions with customers and competitors, as well as communications with Expana—formerly Urner Barry—a business publisher that tracks egg prices.

The investigation appears to be focused on determining whether major egg companies colluded to restrict supply and artificially inflate prices while raking in record-breaking profits.

The Biden administration’s economic disaster has already led to a crippling increase in food prices that have burdened American families. When Biden took office in January 2021, the average cost of a dozen eggs was just $1.47.

Fast forward to December 2024, and that same carton costs $4.15—a nearly 200% increase, according to the Federal Reserve of St. Louis.

Now, with some stores pricing a dozen eggs at $10 or higher, the Trump administration is stepping in to determine whether corporate price gouging has worsened the crisis.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest data indicates that the national average price of eggs has soared to an alarming $6.85.

According to ABC7, one company that has greatly benefited from this crisis is Cal-Maine Foods, the largest producer of fresh eggs in the United States.

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US Scours World For Egg Supplies After Biden’s “Insane Slaughter Of 150 Million Chickens”

The Biden-Harris regime’s questionable handling of the nation’s food supply chain—leading to the culling of 150 million egg-laying chickens amid the avian flu crisis—has led to nationwide supply disruptions and record-high egg prices. There were no visible countermeasures Biden officials put in place to offset the loss of domestic production, and the out-of-control culling only created an epic disaster for consumers. Now, the Trump administration is left to manage the fallout, scrambling to secure global egg supplies in an urgent effort to stabilize prices. 

On Thursday, Elon Musk wrote on X, “It’s true. There was an insane slaughter of 150 million egg-laying chickens ordered by the Biden administration.” 

The mass culling of chickens infected with avian flu—or at least what the prior administration claimed—was part of the USDA’s “stamping-out policy.” Whether depopulating entire commercial flocks was the right approach remains to be seen.

According to Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, the previous administration’s approach was simply “to just, you know, kill chickens.”

Speaking to CBS last month, Hassett stated, “They spent billions of dollars randomly killing chickens within a perimeter where they found a sick chicken.”

On Tuesday night, Trump told a joint session of Congress that “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.”

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Denver Mayor Mike Johnston floats 20% service charge to tackle restaurant woes

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston wants to add a 20% service charge to local restaurant tabs — and then tax it — to help restaurants cope with the city’s minimum wage and promote what he called pay equity among tipped and non-tipped employees.

On Monday, Johnston told City Cast Denver, a popular podcast, that he has already been discussing the idea with restaurant owners. He didn’t say whether they are on board. He also did not discuss if increasing people’s dinner costs would decrease restaurant visits. 

Johnston has incurred the ire of some local restauranteurs, who this month penned a letter expressing their frustrations with the city for everything from public safety worries and negative perceptions of downtown to parking and infrastructure needs.

They pointed to a series of stabbings on the 16th Street Mall over a January weekend that left two dead and two more injured.

“You ran your entire campaign platform on restoring our Downtown Denver business districts,” Dave Query, owner of Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar, said in his letter to Johnston. “It has gotten worse since you took the position of Mayor, even though you have received $550M towards stewarding it in a different direction.”

He added: “This is the current vibe and energy on our downtown streets, and our long-time LoDo and Larimer guests are now driving to Cherry Creek and NorthField and Golden for dinner and entertainment.”

“We know it’s a challenge,” Johnston told City Cast Denver, noting that restaurant labor costs have increased by 200% over the past decade. “We’ve had 400 restaurants close in Denver over the last three or four years and we know that a big part of that is the increase in the minimum wage, and we want folks to make more money.”

The challenge, he said, is ensuring an equitable and livable wage, while allowing restaurants to thrive.

Johnston said a recent restaurant tour group told him that wage disparities exist across the industry, with tipped servers making as much as $120,000 in annual salary because they have both the city’s minimum wage, plus tips, compared to the back-of-the-house staffers, such as cooks and dishwashers, who, he said, make $40,000.

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President Trump Dismantles Fake News Media’s Narrative for High Egg Prices: ‘I’ve Been Here for Three Weeks’

President Donald Trump immediately addressed the media’s latest fixation on skyrocketing egg prices, a crisis they’ve been quick to blame on his recent return to the White House.

As Trump arrived at Palm Beach International Airport on Sunday en route to the Daytona 500, he was immediately questioned by reporters about the record-high egg prices, a topic that has been sensationalized by media outlets looking to blame his administration.

“Well, there’s a flu. Before I got here, it was already at an all-time high,” Trump said.

“I’ve been here for three weeks. I have had nothing to do with inflation. This was caused by Biden. I had four years of virtually no inflation. So I’m just taking over. But I’ll tell you what, this country has made more progress in the last three weeks than it’s made in the last four years, and we’re respected again as a country.”

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The Fed Has Stopped Pretending Price Inflation Is Going Away

At its September 2024 meeting, the Fed’s FOMC cut the target federal funds rate by a historically large 50 basis points and then justified this cut on the grounds that “The Committee has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent, and judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance.”

The FOMC again cut the target rate in November and then again in December. Each time, the FOMC’s official statement said something to the effect of “[price] inflation is headed to two percent. Specifically, the November statement said “[Price inflation] has made progress toward the Committee’s 2 percent objective.” The December statement said exactly the same thing.

It remains unclear what motivated the FOMC to slice the target rate so drastically in September. Was it a cynical political ploy to stimulate the economy right before an election? Or was the Fed spooked by weak economic data? We don’t know, and the Fed is a secretive organization.

But whatever the Fed actually believes, the committee’s claims about “greater confidence” in falling price inflation is now gone. The FOMC announced in January that it would not lower the target rate, and the FOMC also removed from its official statement the line about making progress “toward the Committee’s 2 percent objective.” That sentence disappeared from the written statement, although Powell, in the press conference, apparently felt the need to remind the audience that “Inflation has moved much closer to our 2 percent longer-run goal…” He nonetheless failed to mention anything about continued progress.

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The Government Lost 36% of Your Money Last Year

In a 2022 interview, then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg discussed how we was going to spend $1.2 trillion of taxpayer money from the recently passed infrastructure bill.

“The main thing I’m thinking about,” he said, “is how do we make sure we take all this money— you know it’s $1.2 trillion— and actually deliver $1.2 trillion dollars worth of value. . .”

That whole way of thinking is just astonishing.

If you invest $1 million in a business, you’re obviously going to expect that the CEO will deliver a lot more than $1 million in value from that investment. In fact a good executive will be able to turn a $1 million investment into tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in value.

But a couple years ago, when he was still Transportation Secretary, Pete encapsulated the government’s approach to investing. They’re not looking to get a 100x, 10x, or even 2x return.

To them, it’s quite an accomplishment to simply get X, i.e. to spend $1 trillion dollars efficiently enough to simply see $1 trillion of value.

If Pete had been a private sector investment manager, he would have been fired that very day.

I bring this up because the Commerce Department released fourth quarter GDP numbers yesterday, and their report showed that the US economy grew in “real terms” by 2.8% in 2024.

2.8% “real” GDP growth essentially means that the US economy produced 2.8% more goods and services in 2024 than it did in 2023. It strips out any impact of inflation.

But remember— America’s population grows by about 1% per year. And those are just the people in the country legally. If you include the folks who waltz across the southern border illegally, then the total population growth rate is easily 2% or more.

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Inflation Storm Leaves Americans More Reliant On Food Banks

Emily Engelhard, Vice President of Research at Feeding America, told Bloomberg that elevated and persistent inflation ushered in a “new era of food insecurity,” emphasizing that “this is no longer an unemployment issue.” 

Feeding America, the largest charity working to end hunger in the US, has a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks that feed more than 46 million people through food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and other community-based agencies.

“Everyone sees prices getting high — for food, clothes, everything,” Kersstin Eshak told Bloomberg, who recently visited a food bank in Loudoun County, Virginia. She said the inflation nightmare over the last several years depleted her pocketbook.  

America’s cost-of-living crisis mostly erupted during the Biden-Harris regime’s first term. 

Ethan Amos, the head of the Flagstaff Family Food Center in Arizona, said his food bank broke records in 2022 by serving an average of 28,000 meals per month. That figure has now surged to a staggering 40,000 meals per month, driven by the inflationary pressures unleashed during the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous “Bidenomics.“

Believe it or not, Washington, DC, has a hunger crisis. The largest food bank in the area, Capital Area Food Bank, distributed 64 million meals last year—five million more than the previous year. Data from the food bank shows that food insecurity has risen most sharply among households earning $100,000–$150,000.

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