Taxing Wars: The American Way of War Finance And the Decline of Democracy

Taxing Wars explores how a country decides to pay for wars and how that decision shapes how the public and the military experience the conflict. Dr. Kreps explores how the way that the United States has funded her wars fluctuated through time. Government fund their activities through one of three mechanisms: taxation, borrowing, or printing more money. All three have been leveraged in different levels through American history with the noticeable use of domestic borrowing through war bonds. Those methods of raising resources to fight a war have consequences to how the public experiences the conflict and therefore on sense of shared sacrifice that they generate. In a democracy, this sense of shared sacrifice directly impacts the country’s ability to fight. Taxing Wars explores this connection and more.