“World War I would eventually cost the United States $50 billion. The federal budget grew from $742 million in 1916 to nearly $14 billion in 1918. The income tax [adopted in 1913] was needed to finance that explosion in spending . . . . It was sobering for Americans to contemplate that more money was being raised for the war in Europe than had been spent by the federal government in all the years since 1791.”
–Steven R. Weisman, The Great Tax Wars, pp. 290, 329
2:58 pm on November 7, 2013