Wars are expensive, and there was a time when the United States paid for them with money instead of going into debt. Back in those days, however, the American government collected revenue very differently. Those old-timey methods of paying the bills led to more than 100 years of telecommunications excise taxes, including cell phone taxes that some believed were still paying for America's 1898 war with Spain. Congress did originally pass an excise tax to pay for the Spanish-American War, but it...