quote:

The government didn't need the money. Back then, the government obtained the bulk of its revenue from import tariffs, and in the decades following the war, trade boomed...

Back when, exactly? Wasn't the 16th amendment ratified in 1913? Why is how the government managed to raise money in the 1870's relevant to the reinstatement of income tax in the next century? Didn't the US change somewhat over those 40 years?

Trade may have boomed but so did the complexity and costs of running and providing infrastructure for a modern industrial society.

Anyway, why 'fool the people'? Couldn't they have simply thought of income tax as the least objectionable of the various alternatives?

There's a figure here for the US national debt in 1913 - $2,916,204,913.66. It soon afterwards increased by billions because of the US's involvement in World War One.

The mises.org link puts things misleadingly, as if the government's financial state post-Civil War still applied at the beginning of WWI.

Is it at least possible that an income tax was arguably a good idea? Why would people necessarily have to be 'fooled' into supporting it?

Boortz' question could have been framed more straightforwardly: "Why was a Constitutional Amendment creating an income tax passed?"