By the time you read this, it may be even higher. Of course, I’m talking about gas prices. It seems like every morning you drive by the station, the gas price has been upped by not just a few, but often by many cents.
The figures and the amount of increase is startling, especially if you go back and look at the prices from the past couple of years. In 2025, the national average gas price for a gallon of unleaded regular was $3.10 a gallon. For February 2026, the national average price had dropped to $2.91 a gallon. (It was much lower around here, around $2.50 a gallon.)
The national average for unleaded regular was $4.12 a gallon this past Tuesday, a more than 25-percent increase from February 2026. (It may be higher or lower when you read this.) President Trump has called it a “temporary price increase” because of the war in Iran and the inability to ship oil from the Persian Gulf. The “temporary price increase” has been going on for six weeks, and the increases seem to have slowed. But it’s obvious it’s going to be a while before gas prices get back to prewar prices.
What does that mean to our economy? You see the obvious when you head to the pump — the extra $20 or more it takes to fill up your car or truck. What you don’t see is the extra that businesses are having to pay for their fuel, which will, in most cases, be passed on to consumers. It is reported that every one-cent change in the price of a gallon of gas is worth approximately $1.4 billion out of the pockets of U.S. consumers per year.
Do the math on that. Right now that could mean that Americans will spend an extra $120 billion this year on gas. That’s $120 billion that could be spent elsewhere in the economy, boosting businesses. People could actually be saving some of the $120 billion for their future. (Okay, probably not.) Hopefully, the war will soon be settled, prices come back down, and the effects will be short term.
The longer this war continues, the more Americans are feeling the effects in their pocketbooks. But people are still driving. What will be the tipping point, because of the high cost of gas, when folks decide not to go on that trip, not make that purchase, or not go out to eat tonight? Then we will see the true effect of high gas prices on our economy.
But there is another cost Americans are paying because of the conflict in Iran. That’s the actual cost of the war itself. There have been 13 American soldiers killed and many injured. Then there is the financial cost. It is estimated that it costs $1 billion a day to execute our war with Iran. It costs a lot to keep those jets flying and those bombs dropping.
I suppose the question comes down to as to whether it will be worth it. Early in the war, the idea of regime change in Iran and freedom for its people were promoted. Now the hope is to just have a government in Iran that is more open to the West.
Then there is the nuclear weapons. Actually, there are no nuclear weapons in Iran. It is said that Iran is in the process of enriching uranium, which takes time, with the intent of making a nuclear bomb. How soon has been debated, but they don’t have a bomb yet.
The intention of attacking Iran was to eliminate any nuclear stockpiles and stop the process.
So this appears to now be the objectives of the U.S. and Israel in this war — stop the possibility of Iran making a nuclear bomb and maybe some leadership in Iran that is more open to the West. Reopening the Persian Gulf to oil traffic really shouldn’t be considered a victory. It was already open prior to the war with hundreds of ships passing through daily, and was only shut down because of the war.
This is President Trump’s war. He made the decision to start the war and how to execute it. There should be no threat of a nuclear Iran at its end. It shouldn’t matter whether you like or dislike Donald Trump, and all the drama that comes along with him. He should be judged by the end results. Simply, will the United States and the world end up being a safer place because of the war, and was it worth the human and economic cost?