Like awed Lilliputians entering a Brobdingnagian labyrinth, the House Ways & Means Committee this week faced the job of converting half of U.S. industrial manpower, horsepower, purchasing power to war, without wrecking the other half. The means: taxes, of which the Treasury offered a plan to raise another $8 billions (see p. 75), and borrowing.
Money votes since Pearl Harbor have totaled $48,932,995,278; the pending fifth supplemental defense bill will make it $81 billions. Not only must the Treasury raise enough money to pay this bill, it must also prevent citizens from...