Business
The Tab · what it cost you
This year, Washington’s choices cost your household about $1287.
- $1200Tariffs — about a month of groceries, paid at the register, not on your return
- $2.29The ballroom — a candy bar — your half of the $600 million
- $0.47The military parade — a stick of gum — $61 million, street repair included
- $0.76His golf, this term — a gumball — past $100 million and counting
- $83.00Gas, one average car — $0.20 a gallon of tariff on imported crude, 12,500 miles at 30 MPG
An estimate, and it says so: big federal costs divided across roughly 131 million US households, tariff figures from the Tax Foundation and Yale Budget Lab. It models the bottom 97 percent — the people who don’t get the offsetting tax cut and can’t skip the tariff. The top 3 percent get it back, and then some.
The Cut · who the 2025 tax law was for
The income-tax cut was real, and it reached almost everyone. That was the decoy. Here is the same law once the benefit cuts land:
- The poorest tenth−$1,600 −3.9%
- The middle+$500 +0.5%
- The richest tenth+$12,000 +2.3%
Add the tariffs and the health-care-subsidy cuts the same law leans on, and only the richest 5% come out ahead — the bottom 95% pay in more than they got back. — the receipt
Corporations kept their 21% rate untouched and hollowed out the base instead: permanent full expensing worth about $363 billion, plus $141 billion for writing off buildings — the kind of break that never shows up on your return. — the receipt
The bars are the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate for the enacted law (Public Law 119-21, July 2025) — the income-tax cuts and the Medicaid, SNAP and ACA cuts together, averaged 2026-2034. On the tax code alone almost every household got a small cut; the benefit cuts, and then the tariffs, are what turn the bottom negative. Corporate figures from the Joint Committee on Taxation.
The Scoreboard · the economy, by party
Four panels of public data a hostile reader can rebuild — one subtraction per president. Blue bars are Democratic administrations, red are Republican.
Every recession since 1948, by the party holding the White House at onset (NBER dates)
Real GDP growth, 1949–2013, Blinder & Watson, American Economic Review — not explained by what they inherited, not by Congress, not by chance; up to 56–70% traces to oil, productivity and world conditions — “blends of good policy and good luck” — and none of it to fiscal or monetary stance. The gap survives every extension through 2026.
The deficit, inherited → left behind (share of GDP, OMB)
- Carter-2.6 → -2.5held
- Reagan-2.5 → -2.7worse
- Bush I-2.7 → -3.7worse
- Clinton-3.7 → +1.2surplus
- Bush II+1.2 → -9.8worse
- Obama-9.8 → -3.1cut by two-thirds
- Trump I-3.4 → -14.5worse (-4.6 before COVID)
- Biden-11.7 → -6.2cut by half
Since January 1989 the United States has added 49.9 million jobs under Democratic presidents and 1.8 million under Republican ones — 27 to 1. One subtraction per president rebuilds it. — the receipt
Ten of the last eleven recessions began under a Republican president, by the profession's own dating committee. Drop COVID and it is nine of the last ten. No recession has begun under a Democrat since January 1980. — the receipt
Real growth since 1949: 4.33% a year under Democrats, 2.54% under Republicans — peer-reviewed, and not explained by inheritance, by Congress, or by chance (146 of 11,440 party shuffles beat it). — the receipt
"Though business votes Republican, it prospers more under Democrats" — corporate profits' share of income runs higher under the party business votes against, in the AER's own words. — the receipt
Since 1977 the deficit improved across every Democratic administration and worsened across every Republican one. The scoring convention hands each president his predecessor's first fiscal year. — the receipt
Jobs: BLS total nonfarm, January to January, successions split at the month; the current published vintage, which trimmed every recent president’s number and prints the smaller ones. Recessions: the NBER chronology. Growth: the AER, peer-reviewed, replication files public. Deficits: each president is scored as inheriting his predecessor’s final fiscal year. Partial terms say so. Verified 24 August 2026.
The Pump · what a gallon really costs you
Not in dollars — in minutes of your life at work. How long the average worker had to clock in to buy one gallon, and the shock that set the price.
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Reagan1981–1988 · sticker $1.148.0minThe 1986 Saudi price war crashed crude below $10 a barrel
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G.H.W. Bush1989–1992 · sticker $1.116.5min1990: Iraq invaded Kuwait and oil doubled in three months
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Clinton1993–2000 · sticker $1.165.6minThe 1998 glut drove crude near $10 — the cheapest gallon in labor terms of any president
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G.W. Bush2001–2008 · sticker $2.137.9min9/11, then Katrina, then the 2008 run to $147 oil and a record $4.11 gallon
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Obama2009–2016 · sticker $2.968.9minThe Arab Spring: 2011 was the first year crude averaged over $100 — the peak of the whole list
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Trump I2017–2020 · sticker $2.486.4minApril 2020: COVID drove a barrel of oil below zero for the first time ever
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Biden2021–2024 · sticker $3.457.4min2022: Russia invaded Ukraine and gas peaked at $5.02 a gallon
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Trump II2025– · sticker $3.326.3min2026: the Strait of Hormuz war spiked Brent above $100 (term still running)
Today the sign reads $4.10 — about 7.8 minutes of work at the current wage, well above this term’s average, and the highest nominal price ever recorded on this date.
Time-price = 60 × the EIA’s average gallon that term, divided by the term’s average hourly wage (BLS production and nonsupervisory workers). Blue is a Democratic term, red a Republican one. The peak belongs to Obama and the floor to Clinton — neither man set the world oil market, so read the shock, not the party.
The Spikes · the pain is the speed
A high price you can plan around. A price that doubles in a year you cannot. The run-ups that forced households to change their lives.
- 1979–1980$0.86 → $1.19 a gallonThe Iranian revolution nearly doubled crude in a year, and the gas lines came back
- 2007–2008$2.80 → $4.11 a gallonThe rocket to $147 crude — the highest nominal gas price in history, under George W. Bush
- 2020–2022-$37 a barrel → $5.02 a gallonThe COVID crash to Ukraine's war: oil went negative, then gas set a record — the most violent round-trip ever
Gas was once so cheap and steady the station signs were painted by hand. Then the slope got brutal — and the country tore out the “$1” and bolted on digital numbers just to keep up. The number that wrecks a household was never the price. It was the speed.
Rocket & Feather · up fast, down slow
When the cost of making a thing rises, the price rockets up the same week. When that cost falls, the price feathers down — if it moves at all. The gap is margin.
The input eased. Your price didn’t.
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Gasolinecrude↓20%you pay↓2%
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Coffeebeans↓26%you pay↑33%
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Electricitynatural gas↓66%you pay↑22%
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Eggswholesale↓92%you pay↓65%
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Sugarworld sugar↓45%you pay↔ flat
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Fast foodwholesale food↑3%you pay↑40%
No input to blame — these just ratchet.
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Cable TVyou pay↑21%The BLS cable index has risen 21% in six years and has never once posted an annual decline. the receipt
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Streamingyou pay↑60%The ad-free bundle of Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Max and Prime went from about $50 to over $80 a month — every hike, no rollback. the receipt
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Checked bagsyou pay↑17%Nearly every major airline raised the first checked bag from $30 to $35 in early 2024; the bag weighs the same, and US carriers banked $6.8 billion in fees in 2022. the receipt
Input cost against the shelf price. Energy from the EIA, wholesale food and the retail baskets from the BLS, world sugar from ICE, eggs from the USDA. The second group has no commodity input to point at at all — nothing rose to justify the price, so the only thing left to explain it is margin.