Gas Tax Report: 06/22/2026

Gas prices are going down – the current national average is just under $4 for the first time in months. In my area – SW Virginia – it is possible to buy gas for $3.75. This is good news, but in the same sense that it was good news – in Orwell’s 1984 – when the chocolate ration had been “increased” by Big Brother, in that while gas prices are lower they are still much higher than they were before Trump decided to launch a war of choice against Iran.

In December of 2025 – six months ago – the national average was around $2.80 per gallon. Gas prices have a long way to go to get back to where they were. Maybe they will. Here’s hoping they will. More finely, here’s hoping the prime instigator of this war – “Bibi” Netanyahu and his amen corner, which includes pretty much every member of Congress besides Thomas Massie – won’t succeed in kiboshing the “deal” President Trump has finagled.

Trump deserves credit for that, by the way – assuming it is not just another dodge (like DOGE). Taken at face value, Trump recognize the war is a losing deal – for him as much as for America. He was losing political support and – if the war continues – he faced the not-small possibility he might lose more than just that, come the midterms. Come the aftermath of the midterms, that is. The American people are, in general, fed up with the war – which they (mostly) see as not in the interests of America. They resent having to pay a considerable tax at the pump to finance it when they can see no benefit to it.

Trump was wise, in a realpolitik kind of way, to cut his losses.

That this incidentally redounds to the benefit of Americans is almost beside the point. What matters is that – for a change – Trump’s self-interests and the interests of Americans are in congruence on this matter. But are they really? And will they remain so?

The problem with self-interest is that even when it is congruent with the interests of others, it is only so insofar as that goes. In other words, the moment Trump decides it is in his own interest to resume the war, he will resume the war. He did not tender the “deal” to the Iranians because he regretted starting the war but only because he was losing the war and the costs were becoming too high for him to continue waging it. His most fervent supporters – such as Mark Levin – now condemn him for conceding defeat.

This defeat sticks in certain craws. Americans, by and large, are relieved and also grateful that Trump appears to have recovered at least some of his senses. But there is fulminating outrage in Tel Aviv. It is now in the interests of “Bibi” and his amen corner to do something about Trump, whom they now regard as a reprobate. Perhaps something will be done. It is probable something will be done – as Tel Aviv operates on the Lincoln Principle (If you leave me, I will kill you). Perhaps Trump will be accused of “anti-Semitism.” That would be something! Perhaps things about Trump will become known. This has been hinted at by people affiliated with the intelligence apparatus of the Israeli state. It does not seem improbable when one reflects that Trump may have decided to attack Iran precisely because the information contained in the Epstein Files was becoming problematic for him. Some will remember that before the war began, one of the main subjects of discussion was about those files and the weird parking brake 180 the president did with regard to disclosing everything in them, for all the world to see.

If there is something to see, then Trump is truly caught in between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the war is a loser for him. On the other, he could lose everything, if there is something in those files and those files are in the hands of Tel Aviv.

Of course, it could all be just another dodge. A temporary – and false – “peace” – designed to maneuver the situation in a way that ends up rebooting support for the war, by casting the Iranians as the breakers of the “deal.” That may well be the play.

Enjoy the increased chocolate ration. It may not last.

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