Browsing: February 3

A Brief History On February 3, 2014, one year ago today, Fox Broadcasting announced that the previous day’s Super Bowl XLVIII (no. 48) had been the most watched television event in U.S. history with 111 million people watching the Seattle Seahawks beat the daylights out of the Denver Broncos 43-8 in the Meadowlands of New Jersey. Digging Deeper This game was also significant as it was the first Super Bowl played in cold weather in an open-air stadium. Although both teams entered the game with a regular season record of 13-3, the game lost much of its competitiveness as the…

A Brief History On February 3, 1913, a dark day indeed for Americans, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was adopted, making it legal to institute an income tax! Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find that income taxes did not meet constitutional requirements for the federal government to levy such taxes and an amendment was required to allow congress to pass laws levying such taxes. Prior to implementation of the income tax, the main sources of revenue for the United States government were tariffs and excise taxes.  Since those taxes raised prices for everyone, they proportionately…