Randa Abdelfattah and Ramteen Arablui

There are plenty of Americans that are upset, as they were near the close of World War II, about federal controls on prices, about shortages of meat at the supermarket.

You know, the Republicans' campaign in 1946.

Wouldn't you like to be able to go to the grocery store and buy something that you can afford?

After the war ends, Elmer Eyrie retires from public service.

Life magazine calls him one of the world's greatest detectives.

And there was even a Hollywood movie called The T-Man, which stood for The Treasuryman, that was partly inspired by Elmer Eyrie and his treasury agents.

And this is where the story ends for Irie.

Nearly three years after the war's end, he passes away.

But what he left behind, this tax system that he helped enforce and grow, didn't go back to the way it was before the war.

Instead, all that tax money got fed into something else.

We developed a national security state that was big and expensive and required a giant standing army and navy and air force.

In addition, you know, this is the beginning of the atomic arms race and we're developing a huge atomic arsenal.

All of that is expensive and they have to find some way to keep paying for that.

So the government does not shrink.

It's permanently expanded by World War II.

You know, there's a before and after moment in American society, and this is one of them.

Before the 1930s, Americans encountered the federal government at the post office.

After World War II, Americans encountered the federal government in all aspects of their lives, from Social Security to federal highways.

And the debates surrounding these new taxes and this new expanded role of the federal government

got louder.