Republicans try to talk up refunds on Tax Day but impact is appears less than hoped for
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
It is Tax Day and Republicans are ramping up their efforts to highlight last year’s sweeping tax cuts and turn them into political capital.
Party leaders had anticipated that the legislation would lead to a surge in refunds, creating a tangible benefit for voters and delivering a much-needed boost at the ballot box.
However, early indications suggest that may not be the case. Refunds have risen only modestly, reports Politico, with most taxpayers not noticing the difference.
Donald Trump says his “big, beautiful bill” gave the American people the biggest ever tax cuts – although, depending on your yardstick, the 2025 cuts would rank at the third or sixth biggest since 1980.
But Republicans are pushing to keep the tax cuts in the forefront of voters’ minds, even if they may have overplayed their tangible impact.
Of course, the president’s decision to go to war in the Middle East has done little to alleviate the cost of living pressure facing ordinary Americans.
Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform said a quick solution to the war with Iran could reduce some of the pressure on prices that are currently overshadowing tax cuts.
Speaking at a pre-Tax Day event, he said: “But that’s not guaranteed. I run a taxpayer group. War’s kind of out of my control sometimes.”
In other developments:
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Eric Swalwell officially resigned from Congress amid the threat of an expulsion vote and other misconduct allegations he has denied. A special election to fill his vacant seat will be held 18 August. At a Los Angeles press conference on Tuesday, Lonna Drewes accused Swalwell of drugging and raping her in 2018, telling reporters she “did not consent to any sexual activity”.
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The House still needs to pass a bill to fund several Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subagencies, like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Coast Guard, amid a record-breaking partial government shutdown. The Senate advanced measure that remedies this funding lapse, but doesn’t include money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and border patrol, has stalled in the lower chamber.
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Meanwhile, House Democrats on Tuesday proposed creating a commission that would work with JD Vance to remove Donald Trump from office under the 25th amendment, should they determine he is no longer fit to serve. The measure, introduced by Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, follows a series of statements from Trump, including his recent warning that Iran’s “whole civilization will die” if it did not capitulate to his demands, and a social media post that depicted him as Jesus Christ.
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Donald Trump has said that talks with Iran could resume in Pakistan over next two days, according to an interview with the New York Post. “You should stay there, really, because something could be happening over the next two days, and we’re more inclined to go there,” Trump was quoted as saying.
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The US state department said Tuesday that Israel and Lebanon have agreed to launch direct negotiations at a mutually agreed-upon time and place. The state department “expressed hope” that the meeting between Israel and Lebanon would “lead to peace agreement”.
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The Senate will hold its confirmation hearing for Kevin Warsh, the president’s pick to fill the vacant seat of Federal Reserve chair, next week, on 21 April. Both Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee are expected to probe Warsh about his wealth and ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as his views on the Fed’s independence.
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The justice department has asked a federal appeals court to throw out the seditious conspiracy convictions of several leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who were involved in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. In a court filing, the department asked the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the convictions – a step further than moves Trump made to commute the leaders’ prison sentences last January when he granted clemency to all defendants charged in the attack.
Key events
Michael Sainato
Leaders of some of the largest unions in the US have unveiled a drive to jumpstart the country’s ailing labor movement and combat growing wealth inequality under Donald Trump.
To make it easier for workers to join a union, and strengthen the hand of new unions negotiating with powerful businesses, a string of prominent organizers joined together to launch Union Now, a non-profit designed to increase labor union density.
“This is really about trying to put power in the hands of people,” said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the largest flight attendants union in the US, and one of the leaders of the push.
She suggested the time had come for workers to start thinking – in some ways – more like the companies that employ them. “There’s 70% of workers who want a union, and 10% have them,” said Nelson. “If it were a company, they would figure out how to get the product into the hands of the 70% who wanted it.”
The architects of Union Now hope it will provide mobilizing workers with financial firepower. “The reality is that even if unions spent all of their money on organizing and all of their efforts on organizing, it wouldn’t be enough,” Nelson said. “They have to also do all the representation of their current members, have contract fights and all the rest.”
Sam Levin
The US military said it killed four more people in a boat strike in the eastern Pacific ocean on Tuesday, marking the third deadly attack on vessels in the region in four days.
The US Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced the killings in a social media post, claiming, without providing evidence, that the men killed were “narco-terrorists”.
The US military’s boat strikes have now killed at least 174 people since September.
Military officials have consistently alleged that the targets of its lethal boat strikes were “engaged in narco-trafficking operations” but have not presented intelligence or specific details about the individuals to support those assertions.
Legal experts and human rights advocates have repeatedly condemned the strikes as extrajudicial killings that violate US and international law, saying the military cannot execute civilians whom it accuses of crimes.
Trump warns US-UK trade deal ‘can always be changed’ with relations in ‘sad state’
Pippa Crerar
Donald Trump has threatened to row back on the trade deal the US signed with the UK last year, in his latest salvo against the British government over sharp differences about the US’s approach to the Middle East.
The US president said the economic deal struck with the UK, which cut some of his tariffs on cars, aluminium and steel, was “better than I had to” and that it could “always be changed”.
UK ministers have cited the agreement signed last May as an example of the continuing close ties with the US, which they argue persist despite Trump’s increasingly harsh criticism of Keir Starmer and his government.
However, they are furious at the economic fallout on the UK and other nations from the US decision to go to war with Iran, potentially triggering a global recession that would affect the UK more than any of the other G7 nations.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has said she is “frustrated and angry” that the US launched strikes without a clear idea of its objectives, while Starmer said last week he was “fed up” with Trump’s actions causing energy bills to rise.
Trump, in his latest interview with a journalist on his personal mobile phone, told Sky News that the so-called special relationship between the US and UK was in a “sad state” and again accused Britain of being “not there when we needed them” over the Iran conflict.
“Well, it’s been better, but it’s sad. And we gave them a good trade deal, better than I had to, which can always be changed,” he said. “It’s the relationship where when we asked them for help, they were not there when we needed them, they were not there when we didn’t need them. They were not there, and they still aren’t there.”
The latest version of the Save America act could, if it is passed, upend voting for all Americans in the middle of a federal midterm election year and create costly, chaotic changes for elections workers.
As this explainer by Rachel Leingang sets out: “this year’s version [of Save] includes expansive documentary proof of citizenship requirements and criminal liability for election officials from the initial Save act, in addition to a very strict voter ID requirement for casting a ballot and a provision that requires states to regularly turn their voter rolls over to the Department of Homeland Security.”
George Chidi is the Guardian’s politics and democracy correspondent. His recent reporting has included looking at the states bringing in strict proof-0f-citizenship requirements to register to vote and covering efforts by the FBI to investigate Fulton county in Georgia over the 2020 election, the results of which are still challenged by Donald Trump’s supporters.
Guardian reporter Sam Levine has spent years focusing on voting rights in the US, including for our ongoing series The fight for democracy. His recent stories include covering fears about Donald Trump’s hopes to “take over the voting” in November’s midterms, as well as efforts to stop Trump limiting mail-in voting by civil liberties groups.
George and Sam will be online at 12pm ET (5PM BST) on Wednesday. Comments will be open until then and throughout the live Q&A.
Post your questions in the comments now about the impact of the Save act on November’s midterms, what they’ve witnessed in years of covering voter crackdowns in the United States and their hopes and fears for American democracy.
US taxpayers spend hundreds more on military as Trump pushes for vast increase
Anna Betts
Many US households spent hundreds more tax dollars on the military last year, according to new analysis, as Donald Trump’s plans to dramatically increase federal defense spending faces growing scrutiny.
Millions of Americans will race to file their taxes today, the final day for federal returns, amid concern over rising living costs and government spending.
The US-Israeli war with Iran has drawn vast US expenditure on war into the spotlight: Pentagon officials reportedly told lawmakers in March that they estimated the cost of the war had exceeded $11.3bn in the first six days alone, before Trump proposed increasing defense spending by roughly 40% earlier this month, while other government programs would face cuts totaling 10%.
About $4,049 of the average taxpaying household’s federal income taxes went to military-related spending in 2025, according to a new report from the progressive Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) thinktank – up from $3,707 in 2024.
Military-related spending in 2025 includes around $1,870 going to Pentagon contractors, about $770 to military personnel, $130 for nuclear weapons and $57 for aid to foreign militaries.
“These enormous sums for the Pentagon and militarism more broadly come with enormous costs to ordinary people – both in terms of the opportunity cost for other programs and the drain on our wallets,” the IPS said.
The spending of 2025 tax receipts does not account for the cost of the US-Israeli war with Iran, which began in February 2026.
President Donald Trump’s security aide Sebastian Gorka is seeking to become the next head of the National Counterterrorism Center, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, nearly a month after the center’s previous head quit due to differences over the war in Iran.
Joe Kent, who previously headed the center, had said while resigning last month that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States.
The US National Counterterrorism Center and the White House did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment on the Washington Post report.
Republicans try to talk up refunds on Tax Day but impact is appears less than hoped for
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
It is Tax Day and Republicans are ramping up their efforts to highlight last year’s sweeping tax cuts and turn them into political capital.
Party leaders had anticipated that the legislation would lead to a surge in refunds, creating a tangible benefit for voters and delivering a much-needed boost at the ballot box.
However, early indications suggest that may not be the case. Refunds have risen only modestly, reports Politico, with most taxpayers not noticing the difference.
Donald Trump says his “big, beautiful bill” gave the American people the biggest ever tax cuts – although, depending on your yardstick, the 2025 cuts would rank at the third or sixth biggest since 1980.
But Republicans are pushing to keep the tax cuts in the forefront of voters’ minds, even if they may have overplayed their tangible impact.
Of course, the president’s decision to go to war in the Middle East has done little to alleviate the cost of living pressure facing ordinary Americans.
Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform said a quick solution to the war with Iran could reduce some of the pressure on prices that are currently overshadowing tax cuts.
Speaking at a pre-Tax Day event, he said: “But that’s not guaranteed. I run a taxpayer group. War’s kind of out of my control sometimes.”
In other developments:
-
Eric Swalwell officially resigned from Congress amid the threat of an expulsion vote and other misconduct allegations he has denied. A special election to fill his vacant seat will be held 18 August. At a Los Angeles press conference on Tuesday, Lonna Drewes accused Swalwell of drugging and raping her in 2018, telling reporters she “did not consent to any sexual activity”.
-
The House still needs to pass a bill to fund several Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subagencies, like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Coast Guard, amid a record-breaking partial government shutdown. The Senate advanced measure that remedies this funding lapse, but doesn’t include money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and border patrol, has stalled in the lower chamber.
-
Meanwhile, House Democrats on Tuesday proposed creating a commission that would work with JD Vance to remove Donald Trump from office under the 25th amendment, should they determine he is no longer fit to serve. The measure, introduced by Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, follows a series of statements from Trump, including his recent warning that Iran’s “whole civilization will die” if it did not capitulate to his demands, and a social media post that depicted him as Jesus Christ.
-
Donald Trump has said that talks with Iran could resume in Pakistan over next two days, according to an interview with the New York Post. “You should stay there, really, because something could be happening over the next two days, and we’re more inclined to go there,” Trump was quoted as saying.
-
The US state department said Tuesday that Israel and Lebanon have agreed to launch direct negotiations at a mutually agreed-upon time and place. The state department “expressed hope” that the meeting between Israel and Lebanon would “lead to peace agreement”.
-
The Senate will hold its confirmation hearing for Kevin Warsh, the president’s pick to fill the vacant seat of Federal Reserve chair, next week, on 21 April. Both Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee are expected to probe Warsh about his wealth and ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as his views on the Fed’s independence.
-
The justice department has asked a federal appeals court to throw out the seditious conspiracy convictions of several leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who were involved in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. In a court filing, the department asked the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the convictions – a step further than moves Trump made to commute the leaders’ prison sentences last January when he granted clemency to all defendants charged in the attack.