Dan McLaughlin of National Review Online ponders a questionable federal agency.
There’s a shortage of eggs in America right now, and the ones you can get are very expensive. Even Waffle House is adding a surcharge if you order eggs. That’s mostly not about markets, or about government; there’s a shortage of eggs mainly because of a disease killing birds. That being said, we have ample evidence that the insatiable American demand for eggs currently outstrips supply.
So: Why do we have a federally mandated Egg Board? According to the Egg Board’s website, it exists for Soviet-style purposes of hectoring people to eat eggs for the fatherland:
“The American Egg Board (AEB) was created by an Act of Congress in 1976 at the request of America’s egg farmers, who desired to pool resources for national category-level egg marketing. Home to The Incredible Egg and Egg Nutrition Center, AEB is dedicated to increasing demand for all U.S. eggs and egg products. For more than 40 years, America’s egg farmers have supported this mission by funding the AEB. The AEB is 100 percent farmer-funded, and those funds directly support the research, education and promotion necessary to market eggs.”
The website helpfully informs readers with a 25-page single-spaced PDF of federal regulations, which uses the word “shall” 165 times and declares:
“It shall be the policy of the Egg Board to carry out an effective and continuous coordinated program of research, consumer and producer education, advertising, and promotion designed to strengthen the egg industry’s position in the marketplace, and maintain and expand domestic and foreign markets and uses for eggs, egg products, spent fowl, and products of spent fowl of the United States.” …
… Somehow, Waffle House managed to sell eggs to Americans before this. Which answers the time-honored question: Which came first, the bureaucracy or the egg?
