The promise was simple and seductive: Pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, flood American wallets with historic tax refunds, and watch the consumer economy roar. For a few weeks this winter, it looked like it might actually work. Then the bombs started falling on Iran.
Now Wall Street has delivered its verdict. Two of the most closely watched economic research teams on the Street—Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley—reviewed the numbers and reached the same sobering conclusion: The Iran war’s knock-on effect on oil prices has almost entirely canceled out the biggest consumer tax windfall in years. For lower-income Americans, the ledger may be in the red.
