Recently we paid $4.63 per gallon for gas while driving from Neenah, Wisconsin, to Nashville for our industry’s largest trade show. The trip is 633 miles each way. For years, loading up our company van with our booth and hitting the road was the affordable option for a small business like ours. Now even that feels out of reach.

We own OhmCo, a small, family-owned business that provides digital marketing and signage services for car washes across the United States. We are veteran-owned, woman-owned, and entirely self-funded. Every dollar we earn goes back into supporting our employees, growing our company, and serving our customers.

But right now, small businesses are being squeezed from every direction. 

Every extra dollar spent on fuel is money that cannot go toward hiring, healthcare, equipment, or growth. 

We understand that the recent inflation in the price of gas is driven by national policy and global events out of the state’s control. But that doesn’t make the escalating transportation and energy costs any easier for small businesses like ours to absorb, especially when travel, shipping, and logistics are essential to staying competitive.

Large corporations have dedicated legal, tax and compliance teams that can help them absorb rising costs more easily. Small businesses cannot.

What makes this even more frustrating is watching fuel prices climb while consumers are also dealing with higher costs tied to tariffs, supply disruptions, airline instability, and economic uncertainty. Working people and small businesses are left paying the price while political leaders seem more focused on spectacle than solutions.

At the same time, healthcare costs remain crushing for employers. Like many small business owners, we want to provide good coverage for ourselves and our employees, but premiums continue to rise beyond what many businesses can realistically sustain. Healthcare should not bankrupt employers or employees, and people should not have to stay trapped in jobs simply because coverage is tied to employment.

Through our advocacy with the Main Street Alliance, we have connected with entrepreneurs across the country facing the exact same challenges. Small business owners are delaying hiring, scaling back investments, and questioning whether they can continue operating under the weight of rising costs and instability.

We also need elected leaders, including our state Legislature, to prioritize regular working families and small businesses like ours instead of catering primarily to large corporations and powerful special interests. 

Small businesses are the ones sponsoring local sports teams, supporting community organizations, employing local workers, and reinvesting in our neighborhoods. Yet too often it feels like the needs of Main Street come last.

Large corporations have the resources to negotiate, litigate or exploit loopholes. They benefit from complicated tax systems and special carve-outs tend to benefit them over local businesses and communities.

Tax incentives may keep a large corporation from leaving the community, but when they contribute less, that burden still has to be made up somewhere, and it often falls on homeowners or small businesses. 

What small businesses need is not complicated. We need lower and more stable fuel prices and reduced tariffs that increase consumer and operating costs.

We need healthcare that is actually affordable for working families and employers, as well as affordable childcare. 

We need simpler rules for interstate hiring, because every state has different payroll registrations, labor laws, unemployment systems, tax requirements and compliance rules. Larger companies can afford teams of lawyers and HR departments to manage that. Smaller businesses usually cannot. 

We need stronger protections from predatory lending and excessive fees as well as easier access to loans. We need easier access to broadband internet and automation incentives.

We need more competition and affordability in transportation and energy markets. We need policies that support small business growth instead of squeezing us out — lower shipping costs, lower payroll processing and credit card processing fees, and stronger protections against large corporations that delay payments and dominate policy discussions to their advantage and our disadvantage.Most of all, we need elected leaders willing to prioritize regular people and small businesses over large corporations and special interests.

Small businesses are the backbone of this country. At OhmCo, we sponsor a local kids bowling team, and we travel around the country teaching businesses about technology, AI, marketing, and innovation. We believe deeply in our communities and in the promise of hard work.

But right now, many small businesses feel like we are being priced out of survival.

We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for leadership that prioritizes working families and small businesses instead of corporate profits and political theater. Americans deserve an economy where hard work actually leads somewhere again.

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On paper it makes little sense. Ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, roughly 7,000 miles from the United States, is restricted and gasoline prices in this country soar? 

The strait is the major export route for oil produced by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Bahrain and Iran, according to the International Energy Agency. But since Feb. 28, when the Iran war began and the narrow passageway between Oman and Iran became a battleground, U.S. gasoline prices have soared — and the prices of consumer products and services are poised to jump as well. 

Most oil passing through the strait goes to Asian markets, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And due to greater domestic production, the U.S. is importing less crude oil from the Persian Gulf than it has in 40 years, EIA said in a March analysis.

So why are U.S. consumers paying so much more for gasoline? Globalization.

“Supply disruptions anywhere in the world can also affect prices everywhere in the world because we live in a global market,” explained Jeff Lenard, a vice president of the trade group National Association of Convenience Stores. “Oil and refined products like gasoline are traded on the commodities markets. Places with short supply are willing to pay more for product. That drives up the global price.”

Gas prices are tied to the global supply and demand for crude oil, meaning a disruption to the supply anywhere can have an effect everywhere, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, which tracks gas prices.

“It’s because the price of oil is based on how much is available in total. Since oil from there is in short supply, the rest of the oil all around the world becomes more expensive,” De Haan said.

A gallon of regular gasoline Monday cost an average of $4.52, according to AAA up from $4.14 a month ago and $3.14 a year ago. Consumer prices overall were up 0.9% in March, and were averaging 3.3% higher over the past year.

Dissecting prices

While the Middle East oil disruption affects prices throughout the world, retail pump costs can vary dramatically from state to state across the U.S.

California’s average Monday was $6.16, the nation’s highest, AAA reported. Next were Washington, $5.76, and Hawaii, $5.65. The lowest averages were in Oklahoma, $3.95, Mississippi, $3.98 and Arkansas, $4.

The price of crude oil is the biggest part of the price consumers pay at the pump. EIA estimates that it makes up 51% of the retail cost. Distribution and marketing account for 11%, refining costs and profits 20% and federal and state taxes 18%.

That means dramatic changes in the price of crude have a huge impact on retail prices.

 

The National Association of Convenience Stores estimates that each dollar the price of oil increases could be 2.4 cents a gallon at the pump.

Brent crude, the world benchmark, was $70.50 the day before the U.S. and Israel struck Iran. Monday morning, it was more than $104.

The $34 a barrel increase since the war began would mean a 82-cent per gallon increase. 

Competition can keep prices from rising too much. No gas station wants to be an outlier projecting much higher prices than the one across the street.

Taxes and gasoline prices

There are other factors impacting gasoline prices, notably taxes that vary from state to state. 

The federal tax on gasoline has been 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993. President Donald Trump said Monday he supports freezing the tax, though he offered no timeline. A suspension would need congressional approval, and Republican leaders have in the past been reluctant to embrace any pause.

While the average state tax is 33.55 cents a gallon, it varies widely. California’s taxes and fees are estimated at 70.9 cents a gallon, the nation’s highest. The lowest tax and fee rate is in Alaska, 9 cents a gallon.

California’s costs are also boosted by other factors, including its tough environmental standards. The state requires a special blend of gasoline that aims to help air quality.

“This fuel burns cleaner but is more expensive to produce because it requires more processing steps and expensive blending components,” EIA said.

Another reason for the higher prices is California’s reliance on in-state refineries. It doesn’t have as much proximity as other states to interstate supply pipelines

Ripple effects

About 20% of the world’s oil passed through the strait prior to the war. But reopening the strait would be unlikely to suddenly bring prices down.

“In complex supply chains, a disruption in one critical link, even if only briefly, can cascade through the system, well beyond the initial event,” Pinar Keskinocak, professor at the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, said in an analysis. “As delays persist and compound, interconnected systems often take a long time to recover, rebalance, and return to normal.”

“I don’t expect there to be an open flooding of barrels just leaving the region,” said Jerome Dortmans, co-head of global oil and products trading in Goldman Sachs Global Banking & Markets, in an analysis.

And if the Iran crisis continues and the strait remains restricted, more price pain is probably ahead.

“A prolonged disruption of Middle East oil trade would create oil market conditions for which there is no historical precedent,” said a March report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

WASHINGTON — The cost of the Iran war has increased to $29 billion to date, Pentagon officials told lawmakers in both chambers Tuesday.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine and Department of Defense acting comptroller Jules Hurst faced questions from House and Senate appropriators over several hours of testimony on the administration’s Pentagon budget request and the direction of the U.S. operation in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.

The hearings began just as the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest inflation figures that showed skyrocketing fuel costs drove overall inflation to the highest level since 2023.

Rep. Betty McCollum, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, said she remains skeptical of Pentagon spending, as it has lacked “sufficient transparency with gas prices and inflation numbers increasing.”

“The American people just want to afford the basic necessities for everyday life, but this administration is not doing anything to help them with the cost of living crisis,” the Minnesota lawmaker said.

Inflation

Similarly, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee and serves as the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, said “vague generalities are not helping this committee make critical judgments.”

“And the tradeoffs are significant. The deficit is increasing dramatically. We have to be conscious of that. We also have to be conscious (of) helping American families just get by, and inflation just hit 3.8% today,” Reed said.

The latest Consumer Price Index reached 3.8% over one year ago, according to the Department of Labor, up from 3.3% last month.

Fuel and energy costs largely drove the inflation increase, with gasoline up 28.4% compared to last year.

Oil and gas prices have soared since the U.S. joined Israel in launching strikes against Iran on Feb. 28. The protracted conflict has led to a near standstill in the Strait of Hormuz, a key maritime passageway off the coast of Iran where one-fifth of the world’s petroleum crossed prior to the war.

‘It comes with cost’

Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., questioned the Pentagon’s estimate that the war has cost $29 billion, calling it “suspiciously low.”

When pressed, Hurst said the figure does not include the cost of damage to U.S. military bases in the Middle East. Iran launched retaliatory strikes in March on multiple American installations in the region, including a strike on a base in Kuwait that killed six U.S. troops.

“Your acting comptroller suggested that damage to U.S. facilities was not factored into that figure,” Murray said to Hegseth. “It is clear that there has been extensive damage to American military assets.”

The secretary said he could not divulge details on damage to U.S. assets.

“I think an important point is, considering what the president is undertaking, what is the cost of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon? And the fact that this president’s been willing to make a historic and courageous choice to confront that, it comes with cost. And we recognize that,” Hegseth said.

Congressional authorization

Despite continued tit-for-tat attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, Hegseth told lawmakers that a ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is still in effect.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, asked Hegseth whether he believes President Donald Trump will need congressional authorization to continue military activity against the Islamic Republic.

“It doesn’t appear that hostilities have ended, and so the question to you is whether or not the administration has considered or had intended to seek an authorization of the use of military force from the Congress?” she asked.

Hegseth replied: “Senator, our view is that should the president make the decision to recommence that we would have all the authorities to do so.”

Efforts to pass a War Powers Resolution to rein in Trump’s military operations in Iran have failed multiple times in the the Republican-led Senate and House.

A vote is possible this week in the House on a bipartisan War Powers Resolution.

WASHINGTON — Americans saw prices at the pump sharply rise in recent days as the nationwide average cost for a gallon of regular gas shot up 38 cents over the past week, according to GasBuddy.

The motor club AAA clocked the average price of regular gas at $4.46 per gallon and diesel at $5.64, as Iran and the U.S. remain at a stalemate over opening the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s petroleum passed through prior to the war.

“Gasoline prices rose in every state over the last week, with some of the most significant and fastest increases concentrated in the Great Lakes, where states like Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois saw sharp spikes, while Wisconsin experienced more modest gains,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said in a statement Monday. 

“At the same time, diesel prices surged to new records in parts of the region, with some areas touching the $6-per-gallon mark,” he added.

De Haan said refinery outages drove prices up, but other factors like Middle East oil output and President Donald Trump’s plan to free oil tankers stuck in the Persian Gulf could help.

“However, with so many moving pieces, the outlook remains highly fluid, and while some localized relief may emerge, broader price volatility is likely to persist in the near term,” he said.

Trump’s approval ratings, particularly on everyday costs, are sinking. About two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the cost of living, and 66% disapprove of the president’s handling of the Iran war, according to a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll published Sunday. 

Trump’s overall disapproval of 62% was the highest the survey recorded since he first took office in 2017.

The nationwide average for a gallon of regular gas was $4.10 one month ago. Last year at this time, it was $3.16, according to AAA.

Brent crude oil, the international standard, jumped to $114.90 a barrel Monday, the second-highest price jump since Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022.

During a small business summit at the White House on Monday, Trump said the war “is working out very nicely.”

“They thought that energy would be at $300 right, $300 a barrel. And it’s like at 100 and I think going down,” Trump said, incorrectly describing the current trend in prices. “And I see it going down very substantially when this is over.”

Navy escorts through strait

Trump on Sunday announced “Project Freedom,” an operation to guide cargo ships and oil tankers through the strait with the guidance of the U.S. Navy.

The “humanitarian gesture,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, is “merely meant to free up people, companies, and Countries that have done absolutely nothing wrong — They are victims of circumstance.”

Some 20,000 merchant ship crew members have been stranded in the Persian Gulf during the ongoing war, according to United Nations estimates at the end of March.

Trump threatened that Iran would “be dealt with forcefully” if they interfered with the operation.

As of Monday, U.S. Central Command said two U.S.-flagged merchant ships had been escorted through the strait. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps disputed the claim as “baseless and completely false,” according to a statement reported by Iranian state media.

“Any other maritime movements that contradict the stated principles of the IRGC Navy will face serious risks, and any violating vessels will be forcefully stopped,” the statement read.

War continues

The IRGC also claimed to have hit two U.S. military vessels in the strait Monday, a claim categorically denied by U.S. Central Command.

U.S. Central Command’s Admiral Brad Cooper told reporters on a press call Monday that the IRGC launched multiple cruise missiles and drones at merchant ships that “we are protecting.” 

“We have defeated each and every one of those threats through the clinical application of defensive munitions,” he told reporters. 

U.S. Apache and Seahawk helicopters sank six small Iranian boats Monday, according to Cooper.

The United Arab Emirates defense ministry reported Monday it was intercepting Iranian missiles and drones over various parts of the country. Iran’s air strikes on its U.S. ally neighbors have largely quieted in recent weeks.

U.K. Maritime Trade Organization, which reports on security conditions, has kept the strait’s regional threat level as “critical.”

Trump said Saturday he was reviewing a new deal from Iran to end the war. Talks have failed since the U.S. and Iran announced a tenuous ceasefire on April 7.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve was one step closer to the job Wednesday after North Carolina Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis cast the deciding vote to advance Kevin Warsh’s nomination to the full Senate.

Lawmakers on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs voted 13-11 along party lines to move Warsh to the next step.

The potential turnover at the top of the Fed, which sets monetary policy, comes as Americans see higher costs hit their pocketbooks, particularly soaring prices at the gas pump, as the U.S.-Iran conflict disrupts worldwide energy supplies.

Tillis had withheld his support until the Trump administration announced Friday it would drop what the senator described as a “bogus” investigation of current Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

“It’s no secret that the reason that Mr. Warsh’s nomination could have been held up is because of my concern with the investigation. I want to thank the Department of Justice for the assurances that they gave me,” Tillis, R-N.C., said following the panel’s brief morning session that lasted just under 15 minutes.

“The fact of the matter is, this was based on two minutes of testimony. It was not criminal,” Tillis said of the DOJ’s probe into Powell’s June 2025 testimony to Congress on a major $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.

The committee vote comes after Trump’s sustained verbal attacks on Powell over several months, including numerous public threats to fire the Fed leader if he did not agree to lower interest rates. `

A federal judge last month blocked the administration’s subpoenas to probe the Fed and Powell, citing “a mountain of evidence” that Trump was using the investigation to force Powell’s hand.

The Fed was scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon to deliver its latest decision on interest rates, possibly the last under Powell, whose term expires May 15.

Inflation, affordability

The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, said the vote brings Trump “one step closer to completing his illegal attempt to seize control of the Fed and to artificially juice the economy.” 

Inflation and affordability are emerging as major issues ahead of the 2026 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. 

Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., said his constituents in Georgia and beyond “deserve to know that the Fed is on their side, maximizing their chances to keep a good paying job and keeping their lives affordable, not on the side of the president’s poll numbers or his political concerns as we approach the midterm.”

“Fed independence is not theoretical. It matters to the everyday lives of working families,” Warnock said.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken between April 24-27, 61% of Americans think the U.S. economy is on the wrong track. 

When asked about the costs and benefits of the war in Iran, only a quarter of respondents said they agreed the U.S. military operation was worth it, according to the Ipsos poll.

Americans have watched fuel prices climb in March and April after Iran retaliated against the U.S.-Israeli attacks by choking off the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow maritime passageway where, prior to the war, one-fifth of the world’s petroleum passed.

Gas prices climb

The average price across the U.S. for a gallon of regular gas reached $4.23 Wednesday, not only the highest price point since the U.S. launched operations in Iran on Feb. 28, but also the highest since July 2022, according to GasBuddy.  

Prior to the war, a gallon of regular hadn’t topped $3 all year.

A return to normal, free flow in the strait — which was about 140 vessels per day pre-war — appears out of reach at the moment, as Trump announced last weekend his negotiators pulled back again on attending talks in Islamabad.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sidestepped a question Wednesday regarding how much longer the war might last, asked by Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., before the House Armed Services Committee.

During the same hearing however, the Pentagon’s Jules Hurst III, acting undersecretary of war who oversees finances, did reveal the war had so far cost the U.S. $25 billion.

While the Fed’s inflation target is 2%, data released at the beginning of April showed prices for all items rose 3.3% over a year ago. The jump was largely driven by a 21% spike in fuel prices from February to March.

The Fed’s so-called “dual mandate” is to maximize employment and stabilize prices. The Fed primarily loosens or tightens the economy by adjusting interest rates — lowering them if the economy lags and inflation is too low, and raising them when inflation becomes too high.

Lisa Cook firing

Warren and Warnock also noted Trump’s ousting in August of Fed Governor Lisa Cook, appointed to the board by former President Joe Biden. The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing whether Trump exceeded his authority in firing Cook.

Warnock said he was dissatisfied with Warsh’s written responses to additional questions sent after his April 21 nomination hearing before the committee.

“I asked, quote: ‘If President Trump, or any future president, attempts to unlawfully fire you without cause, would you leave the Federal Reserve?’ His response, quote: ‘I will not answer hypothetical questions of this nature,’” Warnock recounted.

“Well, this isn’t a hypothetical question. In fact, the president attempted to fire Governor Cook this in the past year, and the president has repeatedly mused about firing Chair Powell because he won’t bend to his interest rate demands — doing so as recently as two weeks ago,” Warnock said, referring to Trump’s comments during an April 15 Fox Business interview. 

Asked Wednesday afternoon if he thinks Warsh will persuade the Fed’s board of governors to lower interest rates, Trump told reporters, “They should because it’s a good time to lower them. We’re the most prime country anywhere in the world.”

Powell also faced questions Wednesday afternoon.

When asked whether he expects Warsh will remain independent of Trump, Powell said, “He testified very strongly to that effect in his hearing, and I’ll take him at his word.”

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The 2026 tax filing season closed Wednesday with the Trump administration and Republicans on Capitol Hill hailing success under last year’s massive tax cuts law, while Democrats said any benefits have been wiped out by skyrocketing gas prices, inflation and more.

More than 53 million Americans claimed at least one new benefit, averaging a tax cut of $800, under the tax cuts and spending package passed by congressional Republicans and enacted by President Donald Trump on July 4, according to the Department of the Treasury.

Originally titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but rebranded by Republicans as the Working Families Tax Cuts law, the measure made permanent Trump’s 2017 reduced tax brackets. 

It also quadrupled the state and local tax deduction cap and increased the child tax credit by $200.

Democrats marked Tax Day by criticizing the law and pointed to increasing inflation and tariff costs as wiping out the value of tax relief, as both sides try to gain the advantage in messaging ahead of crucial midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

Tips, car loans, overtime

The new law cut taxes on tips until 2028 and on qualifying car loan interest until 2029. 

As for Trump’s campaign promise for no tax on overtime, the law applies the advantage on up to $12,500 in overtime earnings for individuals, and $25,000 for joint filers, through 2028. 

Additionally, eligible senior citizens can now deduct up to $6,000 for individuals, $12,000 for couples, until 2029.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a Tax Day statement that Trump’s leadership upholds “the foundational principle that hardworking Americans should be rewarded, not punished with tax hikes, and the results of this tax season prove it.”

According to Internal Revenue Service statistics to date and made public Wednesday:

• Six million filers claimed no tax on tips, with an average deduction of $7,100.
• Twenty-five million filers claimed no tax on overtime, averaging a $3,100 deduction.
• Thirty million seniors claimed the enhanced senior deduction, receiving an average break of $7,500.
• One million Americans deducted car loan interest, getting a $1,800 break on average.

Bessent, acting IRS commissioner after a turnover of six IRS commissioners in 2025, said the agency has “worked tirelessly to ensure our tax system works for the people it is meant to serve.”

“From the shop floor to the kitchen table, taxpayers are feeling the difference of the largest tax cuts in our nation’s history, and millions of Americans are keeping more of what they earn and seeing their paychecks go further than ever before,” Bessent said.

The White House circulated a collection of statements from taxpayers Tuesday praising the new deductions. 

Trump also held a photo opportunity Monday, when he received a McDonald’s delivery from a self-proclaimed “DoorDash Grandma” who lauded tax relief on her tips in a planned event. Trump subsequently pulled cash from his pocket and handed it to the woman, Sharon Simmons of Arkansas, who represented the tech delivery service. 

Simmons, no newcomer to such GOP appearances, also testified before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee in late July 2025, following the passage of the tax law, to praise the no tax on tips policy.

134 million income tax returns

Frank Bisignano, IRS chief executive officer, told Senate tax writers on Capitol Hill Wednesday that the 2026 filing season was the “most successful tax filing season in IRS history.”

Trump created the IRS CEO position last year. Bisignano also serves as the commissioner of the U.S. Social Security Administration.

“This landmark legislation forms the cornerstone of the administration’s growth agenda. The latest numbers tell the story,” Bisignano told the Senate Committee on Finance during the panel’s annual oversight hearing examining tax collection.

The agency to date has seen over 134 million income tax returns filed for 2025 earnings, with 98% of them done electronically, according to IRS data. Bisignano hailed the issuance of 80 million refunds that on average totaled $3,400, up by 11% compared to 2024. 

Senate Democrats on the panel panned the cost of the new tax regime and questioned whether a shrinking IRS staff will contribute to less enforcement. 

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said “the lack of cops on the beat at the IRS is going to cost the Treasury in the United States $646 billion in unpaid taxes by the wealthiest people in America.”

According to reports, roughly 26,000 employees left the IRS last year as part of Trump’s civil service reduction incentives and firings.

“I remember you saying when you and I met before your confirmation that you are deeply concerned about the level of national debt in this country,” Bennet said to Bisignano. “It is $38 trillion and a lot of that is because of the completely unpaid-for tax bill that is the Trump tax bill.”

The cost of the tax bill will be realized in years to come, according to congressional scorekeepers.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the law will cost $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years —  more than $4 trillion if accounting for interest that will accumulate on the nation’s debt.

An analysis by the Tax Foundation, which generally advocates for lower taxes, found tax revenue coming into U.S. coffers will drop by nearly $5.2 trillion over the next decade. Individual income taxes have been the government’s largest single source of revenue since 1944, according to data compiled by the Tax Policy Center, a partnership between the Urban Institute and Brookings Foundation.

How the tax cuts were offset

Lawmakers who wrote the massive tax law accounted for some of the lost revenue by overhauling eligibility and work requirements for government health and food assistance for low-income Americans. 

According to a recent report from the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, roughly 2.5 million Americans have lost Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits since the tax law came into effect.

The CBO estimated the law’s changes to work requirements for Medicaid, the government’s low-income health care program, will result in millions of Americans losing health insurance. 

Senate Republicans defended the law, saying it helped Americans by avoiding “the largest tax increase in American history.”

“Had the 2017 tax cuts expired, taxpayers earning less than $400,000 would have faced a more than $2.6 trillion tax hike over the next decade,” said Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho. 

Pilot program canned

The panel’s highest-ranking Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., slammed the new law for terminating a free alternative for tax filing, IRS Direct File, enacted under former President Joe Biden’s own budget reconciliation megabill.

The limited pilot program offered a free filing portal directly through the IRS and was available to 19 million taxpayers in 2024.

“Direct File in America died on Mr. Bisignano’s watch,” Wyden said, adding the program’s termination again puts taxpayers at the mercy of “tax software giants who overcharge for a service that ought to be free.”

Rather, the IRS offers Free File, an option available to taxpayers under a certain income level, now capped at $89,000, via a handful of tax preparation software companies that contract with the federal government.

A 2019 Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report described the program as “fraught with complexity and confusion.” Estimates show roughly 14 million free-file-eligible taxpayers were led to pages where they were prompted to pay for add-ons and extra services.

Taxpayers at any income level have the option to file for free via fillable PDF forms, but that option requires manual entry without guided prompts.

Wyden said the arrangement is a “multi-billion dollar rip-off.”

Bisignano called Direct File an “unnecessary and less popular duplicate of programs.”

Dems continue ‘affordability’ argument

The Democratic National Committee pounced on Tax Day to highlight Trump’s policies and use of taxpayer funds. Affordability is front and center in the upcoming midterm elections.

Though Trump campaigned on lowering prices and taxes, DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement the president has so far given Americans “a reckless trade war that has hiked prices, and a deadly and costly taxpayer-funded war with Iran.”

“This Tax Day, Americans are seeing lower-than-promised refunds hit their bank accounts that won’t even cover the higher costs Trump has forced them to shoulder. It couldn’t be clearer: Trump and the Republican Party are on the side of billionaires, big corporations, and wealthy special interests,” Martin said.

WASHINGTON — Spikes in energy prices caused by the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran drove up inflation for Americans in March, according to the latest consumer price index figures released Friday.

Costs jumped 0.9% in March compared to the previous month — that’s up from the 0.3% increase in February. 

Prices for all items together, including food, energy, shelter and other commodities like vehicles, rose by 3.3% from a year ago. That’s the highest annual jump since May 2024, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics historical data. 

Fuel costs drove the spike, with gasoline and fuel oil together rising 10.9% in March compared to the previous month. Singled out, gas prices jumped 21.2% in March. The cost for airfare, largely driven by jet fuel prices, rose 2.7% in March, up from the 1.4% jump in February.

President Donald Trump launched the joint war in Iran with Israel on Feb. 28. In response to the intense bombing campaign that killed the country’s supreme leader and numerous senior officials, the Iranian regime effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage in and out of the Persian Gulf vital to the transport of one-fifth of the world’s petroleum.

As of Friday, Americans were paying $4.15 on average nationwide for a gallon of regular gas, according to AAA. The average for diesel across the U.S. is $5.68 per gallon.

Prior to the war, a gallon of regular hadn’t topped $3 all year.

Iran’s de facto takeover of the Strait of Hormuz by threatening to strike any tankers, other than a handful from friendly countries, has caused the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, according to the International Energy Agency.

Despite a tenuous ceasefire agreed to Tuesday evening Eastern time, Iran is still controlling the strait. Ten oil tankers transited the waterway Tuesday, and only one on Wednesday, according to the latest figures available from the Joint Maritime Information Center, which tracks tankers and cargo ships worldwide that are transmitting location data.

Prior to the war, roughly 140 vessels daily flowed freely through the Strait of Hormuz.

Dems pounce on affordability issue

Democrats blamed Trump Friday for higher inflation, as affordability is emerging as perhaps the single-most important issue ahead of the 2026 midterm elections in November that will determine control of Congress.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said the president is “pushing working families to the brink.” 

“Trump promised to ‘lower prices on Day One,’ and instead he waged an unhinged trade war and started an unpopular war with Iran — and what have Americans gotten in return? Nothing except even higher prices. Americans are sick and tired of this president putting his own interests first and using their hard-earned dollars to fund his war instead of making health care more affordable or expanding access to child care,” Martin said in a statement Friday morning.

White House senior deputy press secretary Kush Desai responded to the inflation figures, saying the president “has always been clear about short-term disruptions as a result of Operation Epic Fury, disruptions that the Administration has been diligently working to mitigate.”

“Although gas and energy prices are seeing volatility, prices of eggs, beef, prescription drugs, dairy, and other household essentials are falling or remain stable thanks to President Trump’s policies. As the Administration ensures the free flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz, the American economy remains on a solid trajectory thanks to the Administration’s robust supply-side agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, and energy abundance,” Desai wrote in a statement Friday morning posted on social media. 

Other costs

The price index for food consumed at home decreased 0.2% compared to the previous month, but increased 1.9% from a year ago. 

The costs of fruits and vegetables rose 1% in March compared to the previous month, but prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs declined 0.6%, according to the latest BLS figures.

The price index for items minus food and energy rose 0.2% in March, matching the increase in February. The cost of all items, less food and energy, rose 2.6% over the past 12 months.