Spiking gas prices tied to Iran war are set to eat up tax refunds touted by Trump

https://lemmy.world/post/44589707

Spiking gas prices tied to Iran war are set to eat up tax refunds touted by Trump - Lemmy.World

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy was supposed to start the year with a bang, fueled by an unusually large jump in tax refunds from President Donald Trump’s tax cut legislation. Yet spiking gas prices are on track to eat up those refunds, leaving most Americans with little extra to spend. “Next spring is projected to be the largest tax refund season of all time,” Trump said in a prime-time speech in December that was intended to address voters’ concerns about the economy and stubbornly high prices. But that was before the Iran war, which began Feb. 28. Oil and gas prices have soared since then, with the nationwide average price of gas reaching $3.94 Sunday, up more than a dollar from just a month earlier.

Well it’s okay: the illegal tariff refunds are coming. RIght? RIght?
They are. To the companies that offset them onto customers.
For a while, quite a few companies didn’t want to lose customers so just ate the tariffs, hoping they’d go away quickly. The longer tariffs go on, the more companies will universally pass costs to consumers - so inflation from tariffs actually lag the tariffs a bit
Oh this must explain why prices went down so much after covid, right?