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How California Voters Raised the Price of Eggs Across America
Frontpage Mag ^ | 03/08/2014 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 03/08/2014 11:22:49 AM PST by SeekAndFind

In 2008, California voters endorsed Proposition 2 which banned the confinement of animals. California egg producers had to ensure that chickens had enough room to move around which negated so-called “factory farming” and would end up raising the price of eggs by 20%.

Obviously this was a problem for California agriculture which would have trouble competing on price with free agriculture. And there’s only so much of a market for fair-trade free-range organic chickens lovingly raised in a Quaker school by social justice experts on a strict diet of granola and NPR broadcasts.

And so California’s reds decided to instead raise the price of eggs across America. Sounds fair, right?

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster (D) said Tuesday morning he has filed a federal lawsuit against the state of California over the Golden State’s new regulations on enclosures that house egg-laying hens. The regulations, Koster alleges, violate the constitution’s Commerce Clause.

California voters in 2008 passed a ballot initiative that require larger enclosures for egg-laying hens. Farmers in California worried the new rules, which would increase their costs, would put them at a competitive disadvantage with egg farms in other states, so the state legislature passed a measure in 2010 to require out-of-state producers to comply with California rules.

That, Koster says, is unfair to his state’s egg producers.

“If California legislators are permitted to mandate the size of chicken coops on Missouri farms, they may just as easily demand that Missouri soybeans be harvested by hand or that Missouri corn be transported by solar-powered trucks,” Koster said in a statement.

California farmers must begin complying with the cage law beginning in 2015, under the terms of Proposition 2. The legislature requires out-of-state farmers to begin complying with the same rules by the end of that year.

Koster’s office estimated that Missouri egg producers would have to pay $120 million to expand the size of their coops, and that production costs would rise 20 percent.”

That’s the whole point. The left can’t compete on product or price, but it can kneecap everyone else as long as it has control over populous states. Businesses and individuals can flee California, but they can’t escape its regulatory creep.

The country is awash in ballot initiatives and legislative efforts to increase regulation of agriculture. Maine and Connecticut have passed GMO labeling laws, although they won’t go into effect until other states in the Northeast have passed labeling laws as well. Florida has laws outlawing the most common method of pork production. Several states have outlawed small chicken coops, and states have also banned the sale of foie gras and shark fins. Only California has had the chutzpah to impose the preferences of that state’s voters on the rest of the country.

Make no mistake about it, if egg prices increase by 20 percent, people who face tight budgets at the grocery store will suffer.

But the people who make these laws won’t and California voters have become mindless stooges of the left. And if you buy your eggs with EBT cards, you don’t tend to care how much they cost because you aren’t paying for them anyway.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events; US: California; US: Florida; US: Missouri
KEYWORDS: califronia; egg; florida; food; foodsupply; inflation; missouri
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To: Balding_Eagle
Having the opinion that animals should be treated humanely is hardly "imposing your beliefs on others."

Straw man argument.

41 posted on 03/08/2014 12:10:14 PM PST by SamAdams76
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To: dalereed; Lurker; Lazamataz
Pay for your animal rights crap but don’t force it on everyone else!!

Right on. Why is it the only good old fashioned Conservative common sense left on this forum seems to be from the class of '98?

42 posted on 03/08/2014 12:10:41 PM PST by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: dalereed

Vegetables are what food eats. The way I see it, I eat my veggies after they’ve been processed by a food machine.

We do need to be nice to the food machines.


43 posted on 03/08/2014 12:10:42 PM PST by Cyber Liberty (H.L. Mencken: "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.")
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To: SamAdams76
Having the opinion that animals should be treated humanely is hardly "imposing your beliefs on others."

Putting that opinion into law IS imposing your beliefs on others.

44 posted on 03/08/2014 12:12:08 PM PST by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: P-Marlowe
Nothing but cage free organic for me. I can afford it and prefer the taste, color and avoidance of synthetic compounds.

I also believe we have a moral duty to ensure animals are not abused.

But if it were an issue of whether somebody would literally starve if hens were not cooped up in egg factories, I would reconsider my position.

I don't think that's the case here.

And CA is not forcing a Missouri farmer to conform to CA rules. That farmer is free to sell his eggs in any other state, all of which have rules too.

I know a lot of people disagree, I just wanted to state my opinion. I'll not get into an argument.

45 posted on 03/08/2014 12:14:06 PM PST by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: P-Marlowe

I agree, there has to be some consideration for the animal’s living conditions.


46 posted on 03/08/2014 12:15:16 PM PST by fortheDeclaration (Pr 14:34 Righteousness exalteth a nation:but sin is a reproach to any people)
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To: usconservative

It’s because we give a damn, and have for >15 years. In my case, it’s because I’m still silly, even after all these years.....


47 posted on 03/08/2014 12:16:03 PM PST by Cyber Liberty (H.L. Mencken: "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.")
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To: WilliamRobert

And you don’t torture your food either.


48 posted on 03/08/2014 12:16:11 PM PST by fortheDeclaration (Pr 14:34 Righteousness exalteth a nation:but sin is a reproach to any people)
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To: Lazamataz

Any good recipes for road kill?


49 posted on 03/08/2014 12:17:13 PM PST by Foundahardheadedwoman (God don't have a statute of limitations)
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To: usconservative
Your post was #13 -- which makes me wonder just what in the hell is becoming of good old fashioned logic and reasoning on this forum.

Read some of the other nonsense. Idiots who have no idea how to feed a country, let alone the world.

Maybe it's just a weekend thing.

50 posted on 03/08/2014 12:17:52 PM PST by Balding_Eagle (Over production, one of the top 5 worries for the American Farmer every year.)
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To: Cyber Liberty
“We do need to be nice to the food machines.”

The food machines that process my vegetables are powered by gas or electricity and don't poop in the processing area!

51 posted on 03/08/2014 12:17:53 PM PST by dalereed
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To: usconservative

Yes, it is sad when even Conservatives talk like idiots.


52 posted on 03/08/2014 12:18:53 PM PST by fortheDeclaration (Pr 14:34 Righteousness exalteth a nation:but sin is a reproach to any people)
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To: SeekAndFind

This all leads back to the progressive destruction of the family (ie the family farm/ homestead)

Americans used to produce their own. If more Americans got back to that then this wouldn’t be a problem.


53 posted on 03/08/2014 12:19:03 PM PST by barmag25 (Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? NO!!!)
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To: P-Marlowe

+1. I’m okay with it.

Eggs, Milk, 2 rashers and a piece of toast, Apple and 1/2 a sandwich, 4 oz lean meat, green leafy vegetable.

$9 for a healthy food day. X 4 makes it $36 per day for a family of 4. $252 a week for rouglhy $1000 per month for a family of 4. Working with a tight budget and trying to maintain healthy eating.

with a %20 increase in eggs ... increases the monthly expense by $67.


54 posted on 03/08/2014 12:19:25 PM PST by Usagi_yo (Standardization is an Evolutionary dead end.)
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra

“That sow is ready to be bread.”

Or even bred.


55 posted on 03/08/2014 12:19:30 PM PST by Beagle8U (Unions are an Affirmative Action program for Slackers! .)
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To: Cyber Liberty
Ha, good to see you.

As someone who actually LIVED on a farm and knows what "go out back and get a chicken for dinner" actually meant, I'd bet no one else on this thread would have the guts to truly "make their own dinner" from killing it, gutting and cleaning it and getting it ready for the frying pan.

They'll probably call me an animal abuser for this post, the gutless sissies.

56 posted on 03/08/2014 12:19:44 PM PST by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: usconservative

No one is forcing you to eat eggs.


57 posted on 03/08/2014 12:19:58 PM PST by fortheDeclaration (Pr 14:34 Righteousness exalteth a nation:but sin is a reproach to any people)
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To: fortheDeclaration

And no one’s forcing you to post nonsense, yet here you are.


58 posted on 03/08/2014 12:21:11 PM PST by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: Balding_Eagle

Bump Ah dee Bump Bump!


59 posted on 03/08/2014 12:22:41 PM PST by Beagle8U (Unions are an Affirmative Action program for Slackers! .)
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To: Lazamataz

Oh boy. Koster is a Democrat gunning for governor one of these days in an agriculture state. That gives him points. Secondly, for conservatives the issue IS commerce at this point. Missouri may one day require a different way of producing eggs but not today. So, no, hostile California should not dictate how we should produce product.


60 posted on 03/08/2014 12:22:53 PM PST by taterjay
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