In Southwest Virginia, where I live, regular unleaded is about $4 per gallon – “cheap” relative to what it costs in several other states, notably California (where family reports it is closer to $6 per gallon).
On a personal level, I am paying an additional $15 to fill up the old truck – which has a roughly 15 gallon tank – and an additional $22 to fill up the old Trans-Am’s tank. It used to cost about that much, by the way, to completely fill up the Trans-Am’s tank – back in the ’90s, when I bought the car. It is one of the reasons why I was able to regularly drive it back in those days. Here I am some 30 years later – and no longer in my 20s – and I can only afford to drive the TA occasionally, for short distances, because it costs more than $100 to fill the tank today.
Some rough math: An additional $15 per week adds up to about $60 additional per month – which comes to about $720 additional annually I wasn’t having to pay last year. This is what I got for voting for Trump; i.e., a yuge tax increase. In addition to the tax increases Trump likes to refer to as “tariffs,” as if we didn’t have to pay for those, either.
The war that is the reason why we’re paying for it at the pump is currently tamped down a bit but far from being over. More finely, the relevant thing is the Iranians have not opened the Strait and the price of a barrel of oil is still about $95. That’s down a little but still up a lot – relative to what it was before Trump decided to start this stupid, evil war. It is possible it will go back down to where it was. Because almost anything is possible. It is possible Trump might remember some of the things he promised he’d do – such as end the federal income tax. It is also possible a bar of gold will show up in the mail today.
Back to the math.
If things stay as they are, Trump’s stupid, evil war will have cost me about $2,100 by the time we get to the end of his current term in office. Unlike Trump, I’m not a billionaire, for whom $2,100 is pocket change. Trump, being a billionaire, does not seem to get that $2,100 is a great deal of money for most of us, by which I mean the people who – speaking generally – voted for Trump in the hope that he did understand that $2,100 is a lot of money for us. This was foolish of us, of course – because Trump is a billionaire. Even if he were not a sociopath, it is a bit much to expect someone who has a thousand million dollars – at the minimum – to be capable of empathizing with people for whom $2,100 is no small sum. This speaks to a general problem with the American oligarchy – which is just the right term for it. The people who rule us have very little in common with us, which is why – even if we assume they are not maliciously inclined toward us – they cannot empathize with us.
Of course, they pretend to. This being the core element of the Electoral Kabuki that plays out every four years. It is truly a theater of the absurd and Trump is its exemplar. This risible, ridiculous idea that a billionaire New York real estate tycoon has anything in common with the help. We are – to him – exactly that. Yet many of us thought he might be one of us when we saw him manning the drive-thru at McDonald’s and sitting behind the wheel of a garbage truck he almost certainly has no idea how to drive. To be fair to Trump, he is just the latest kabuki performer. Obama excelled at this role as well. Even more so Bill Clinton, who got people living in single wides to believe he was a Bubba, just like them.
It is probably a good idea to fill the tank (and the jugs) at $4 per gallon while you still can. It may seem cheap a couple of weeks from now.
. . .
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: Get an EPautos magnet or sticker or coaster in return for a $25 or more one-time donation or a $10 or more monthly recurring donation. (Please be sure to tell us you want a magnet or sticker or coaster – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
If you’d like a Baaaaa hat or other EPautos gear, see here!
[…] https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2026/04/16/war-tax-report-04-16-2026/ […]
5 dollars per gal today 2026,is about $0.59 per gal in 1970. Our problem seems to be gov induced inflation and central bank robbery using their announced mandetory 2% inflation per year. If its hanging those causing this don’t forget our friends at the FRB and treasury.
Christians for Israel is like Chickens for KFC
https://i.imgur.com/l8JMj2r.png
Trump is the little Machio Karate kid doing the war on war off as Bibi commands. Oil crashing today, next week it’ll be war on and back toward the previous highs. It’s funny watching Trump and his bluster. Always on a Friday, always prepping for an early week reversal. Bet team Trump is loading up on PolyMarket June calls. Besides, no one asked Israel if the war is over.
Cant help but think they are concocting some new way to drag us deeper into the their vile cess pit. Diesel is over 6$ around here, Mid grade unleaded approaching 5$. Nothing was solved by this latest outbreak of peace. Wish we had a stable genius playing the president. We could have all the cheap energy/electricity we need in North America. And to be honest, I dont really care what happens in the rest of the world. Just want a tiny bit of the winning we were promised.
‘Trump is the little Macho Karate kid doing the war-on war-off as Bibi commands.’ — Norman Franklin
Funny, today there’s a new video called Goy Story, presenting exactly this theme:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yJbVSi2Cu-g
Even Sleepy Joe makes a cameo appearance! 🙂
Bahahaha! I’ll dance it a few times, Jim!
Such a fine doctor he is, leveling hospitals by the dozens!
It’s Friday night lads! Let’s dance an Irish jig with Doctor Donnie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5GLRZC4Kfo
Replied to the wrong post… You know it’s Friday night!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYfj1ngCXxA
Brilliant.
As for which is the biggest gob-shyte, the pope or orange jeebus, We’ll need to check the photo finish camera. Both are lower than anal dwelling butt monkeys. Anyone saying other wise needs their head examined.
Doubtless, Norman.
One is the High Priest of Bullshit, the other is an merely an upstart.
What am I to conclude about this noticing:
https://x.com/redpillb0t/status/2044984398756589843/photo/1
Those on the Talmud Vision are compromised deep state operatives and pedos, etc.
I got a bunch of atta boys on this comment. I list 10 things we could do if we were a sane society:
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/donald-trump-pulls-the-trigger/#comment-7585613
The positive responses gives me hope. I believe if Massie and MTG ran right now they would win by a landslide. We are done with D.C. and their forever wars.
This is the follow up comment:
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/donald-trump-pulls-the-trigger/#comment-7586653
The Strait is open, for now, and now Darth Tangelo bids us praise him.
Yes, praise him for this whole idiotically diabolical mess, including thousands needlessly dead, billions in hardware, infrastructure and housing destroyed.
Praise him for an opened Strait of Hormuz, which was wide open and flowing before this “little excursion” into Hell began.
Praise him for a likely temporary ceasefire in Lebanon, where the Serpents of Zion have razed entire towns and villages because Hezbollah dared fire a few rockets their way in protest of the “little excursion”.
Finally, praise him for continuing to make your life unaffordable, while continuing to force you to pay for his international piracy and “little excursions”.
Despite this little respite, a reckoning is coming. And *praise* won’t be history’s assessment of this spray-tanned shit-piece.
May Poseidon force every one of “our” battleships home, where their crews may return to lives of peace, and their iron hulls can be sent to the sea floor where they will make nice homes for marine life.
Outstanding! Thank you.
Let us also take note of an inspired, immortal essay by Yukon Jack, positing a new Ten Commandments. It is already receiving praise as a masterpiece:
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/donald-trump-pulls-the-trigger/#comment-7585613
That was certainly a sermon I could get behind!
May Poseidon, Neptune, Njord and Aegir purge the seas of the war pigs, and turn the ships into lovely fish condominiums!
So let it be written, Metal Queen. So let it be done.
Aaaand…it’s closed again!
Hahaha, I think they’re just fucking with everyone, now. Good. I hope the markets dive on uncertainty.
Well north of $5 here in WA. Oh and enjoy your artificial but all too real inflation spikes, with diesel at $6.65 here locally & everything moved via diesel truck it’s BOHICA time once again comrades! Grocery shopping will be “sporty” price wise.
Europe getting short on jet fuel just as tourist season begins. Um um um.
I’m convinced a Kamala presidency would be no different in terms of the middle-East war.
Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
Heads they win, tails we lose.
No matter who wins the election, we always get John McCain.
If Harris was president gas would probably be $8 a gallon. Wish I could say that was a joke.
You are right to say this would still be happening if she had won. When it comes down to it, the person in the WH isn’t in charge.
Not defending Trump at all, but at LEAST he managed to get some more oil production at home, which Harris wouldn’t have done. That’s why it would be $8 if she was president. And we don’t have to hear that cackle every damn day.
Hi Rich,
If Kamala Harris were president, we’d likely also see federal efforts to FORCE people out of gas vehicles and into EVs under guise of “Stopping Cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiimate Change, along with efforts to FORCE people to eat the frankenfood that the Bill Gates of the world are creating in labs, with cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimate change as the same excuse.
We’d also likely have seen even MORE Big Pharma shills running the various “Public Health” bureaucracies, and MANDATES for people to take the next experimental mRNA jab made by Pfizer and other pharma companies, as Big Pharma has had TREMENDOUS influence over the federal government for years as was exposed during COVID.
Under Kamala, we would have also seen forced gun control, per her own words of Congress having 100 days to pass gun control legislation, or she would simply write an EO, and doing what she wanted anyway.
Kamela just wanted taxpayers to cover gender reassignment surgery for prison inmates.
That would have cost a smidgen less than this latest forever war.
Not forgetting the reportedly $20 billion in cash we’re going to send Iran.
For all their enriched uranium…at least what we know about.
So approximately FIFTY times the ‘pallets of cash’ sent by Obama.
This just in “Trump and Iran’s foreign minister declare Strait of Hormuz is fully open”.
Oil is down to $89 per barrel and the stock market is surging.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/trump-and-irans-foreign-minister-declare-strait-of-hormuz-is-fully-open
Itz difficult to know who and what to believe these days. Just yesterday Hegseth and the admirals were on TV saying that Hormuz is fully blocked and no ships will pass thru and just now Hormuz is fully opened.
It’s probably a scam to raise “shtock prices” high enough for the big banks and the oligarchs to dump their holdings on you rubes before the market crashes…
Market melt-up? This time it’s different. Nope, it’s very likely not.
The “market” is completely rigged, and no ordinary person gives a shit whether the Dow is at 50,000 or not. Pam Blondi’s infamous comment during the Epstein hearings will go down in infamy the same as Marie Antoinette’s “let them eat cake”, hopefully soon today’s ruling (Epstein) class lose their heads as well.
On 12 APR Trump said fuel prices could be “this high or a little higher” at November elections: “But when Fox News host Maria Bartiromo asked President Donald Trump on “Sunday Morning Futures” whether he thought oil and gas prices could come down before the midterm elections, he said, “it could be the same or maybe a little bit higher.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/14/trump-gas-prices-midterms-iran-war.html
DD Geopolitics (a Russian site) had a meme of him dressed up as Marie Antoinette saying, “Let them eat lead,” yesterday due to his unconcern about blockading fertilizer (he is opening Hormuz, by closing it even as he claims he didn’t know that would happen, but when Iran opens it, TRUMP closes it). Many countries, like Cuba and the far East, are cutting electricity use/having blackouts due to Trump depriving them of oil. It ain’t just gas, it is heat and electricity bills and FOOD bills (IF there is food or gas or electricity). He is taking the U.S. down (AND the world). America is great and was greater before he came into office. When he says “Make America Great Again” — he means the exact opposite. Don’t listen to what he says, STOP what he does!
I believe DDDD was the first to show all Trump’s spin of Covid throughout 2020 that it would be two weeks, just lasting a little longer, soon be over, just wear a mask til get a vaccine which he was suddenly using American tax dollars to pay drug companies worldwide billions of dollars to develop–he is slow walking Americans down the same plank w/this Iranian war to the 2030 takeover of America. I am getting to be like Metal Queen–we need to guillotine them all. NOW.
Great minds think alike:)
Oh, come now, goy. Tut, tut. An additional $720 per year is nothing so that God’s Chosen People can slay Amalek and slay his “women, children, and suckling babes.” Yahweh commands it. Your job is to STFU and be grateful for “Our Greatest Ally.”
Ya don’t like that? Whaddaya, an anti-Shemite? Ya Hitler or something? Eh?
And, let’s not forget the coming inflation. With $200B here and there you will see this fiat money come sliding down in value. Since 1913, with the founding of The Fed, the value of a dollar has dropped some 95%+. It shouldn’t be a long trip to Zimbabwe.
‘Trump does not seem to get that $2,100 is a great deal of money for most of us.’ — eric
For sure, he does not. Listen to how out of touch the MFOB (Monstrous Fat Orange Bastard) is:
‘President Donald Trump spoke to reporters outside the White House on Thursday and was asked about gas prices, which he declared are “not very high.”
“Okay, and then on gas prices, how much longer will Americans continue to see these high gas prices?” Trump was asked by a reporter during the lengthy Q&A.
“Well, they’re not very high. If you look at what they were supposed to be in order to get rid of a nuclear weapon, with the danger that entails, so the gas prices have come down very much over the last three, four days,” hit back Trump.
“$4 a gallon still,” replied the reporter.
“I know, you know, that’s what ABC says, but the fact is that if you look, the stock market’s up, everything is doing really well. And the big thing we have to do is we have to make sure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, because if they do, you want to talk about problems, you’d have problems. So, very important is that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, and they’ve agreed to that. Iran’s agreed to it, and they’ve agreed to do it very powerfully,” Trump replied.
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump-says-gas-prices-are-not-very-high-when-asked-when-americans-can-expect-relief/
WTF is this bloviating FOOL talking about? Only one dangerous, endlessly belligerent country in the middle east has nuclear weapons — little Shitrahell. If its objective is to de-nuclearize the middle east, the US needs to bomb Dimona, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv — problem solved! 🙂
As for his claim that gas prices are ‘not very high,’ Trump travels on the taxpayers’ dime. Every trip he makes to Florida costs millions. Trump is like the clueless George H.W. ‘Poppy’ Bush, who was astonished by bar code scanning technology when he visited a supermarket.
When you live in the White House, you snap your fingers and a chef makes anything you want — again, on the taxpayer’s dime.
As someone said in a memorable post, ‘Nothing says “f*ck you and everything you stand for” like getting ripped limb from limb by wild animals.’ Throw Trump and his entire cabinet to the lions. The pay-per-view revenue could pay off the national debt — which is more than the big spending, permanent deficit Repugniclown party will ever do.
The Love’s truck stop has kept the price at $3.99 for the last two weeks. The Maverick tried to go up to $4.10 but dropped back to match Love’s. Everywhere else is over $4.00.
Trump’s constant pounding on the stock market drum makes no sense to anyone but him. When you consider the big stock holders are pension funds and his banking buddies, the market has been disconnected from the rest of the world for at least a decade. CALPERS alone can be a market maker if there’s no action, and can prop up stocks indefinitely. They have the California tax payer behind them.
Looks like the Orange Douchebag is confirming Pam Blondi’s calling the stock market top “the Dow’s at 50,000” with his own “the stock market is up” cluelessness. Good for my IRA, ot so much for daily living.
Only time will tell how much fuel and food prices will be effected by the war long term but some sites have pointed out that food prices will spike after harvest season so they recommend refilling the pantry as much as you can now while it’s more affordable.
As for me, I’m still waiting for that bar of gold to show up in the mail also but I’m willing to settle for a check from Ed McMahon at the Publishers Clearing House. 🙂
Living well within my means and learning to do almost everything myself has enabled me to still get by in a high inflation/ high tax era.
Luckily Rolls Royce is a introducing a new two-seater electric convertible model.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1eqqlnzq7yo
Called Project Nightingale and has been estimated to cost more than £500,000 each.
See things aren’t as bad as you thought they were, because if you can’t afford gas you can always buy an EV instead…..
Morning, Landru!
Your comment anticipated my new column: https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2026/04/17/5-percent-and-falling/
My prediction Eric is that the Nightingale will be an epic failure but as they’re all custom built they won’t be stuck with inventory rusting on a dealers lot though.
I got a 1953 silver dime in my change yesterday. Like getting a $5 discount on lunch!
Last solver coin I found was a quarter, and I heard it coming down the change chute of a pop machine before I saw it. They feel and sound like money!
I remember higher fuel prices under Barack as well as under Joe. Here’s a link to help your readers remember: “Kamala Harris Launches Attack on President Trump Outside a Gas Station and It Promptly Blows Up in Her Face”. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/04/kamala-harris-launches-attack-president-trump-outside-gas/
Hi Eric,
Defending Trump by pointing out that Obama and Biden and Harris also caused gas prices to go up is not much of a defense of Trump….
Also: Gateway Pundit is obvious garbage. It will rot your brain faster than eating toothpaste.
Indeed, Eric. Defending Trump by comparing him to Obama/Biden is more of an indictment.
Two different presidents; two different manifestations of dementia.