History of U.S. Income Tax...

History of U.S. Income Tax...  Here's a nice piece by Daniel Greenfield, writing at Sultan Knish, highlighting a little-known fact about the origins of the U.S. Income Tax: that the political impetus for it came largely from progressive forces pressing for alcohol prohibition.  Why?  Because almost half of the federal government's tax receipts at the time came from liquor taxes – and prohibition would wipe that out.  The progressives' solution was to impose an income tax on the wealthiest Americans (oh, doesn't that sound familiar?!?!).  A century later very few Americans realize that prohibition led quite directly to the rapid growth of all government because of the newly tapped source of money.  And nothing delights a progressive quite like spending someone else's money...