"Previous wars were largely paid for by taxes. For example, President Harry Truman temporarily raised the top tax rate on the richest Americans to 92% to help pay for the Korean War. And President Lyndon Johnson temporarily raised the top rate to 77% to fund the Vietnam War. At the outset of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq under President George W. Bush, however, Congress cut taxes by roughly 8% for the wealthiest Americans. Since then, war costs haven't been included in the regular defense budget, experts have noted. "In every previous major war, the war budget was integrated into the regular defense budget after the initial period. This meant that Congress and the Pentagon had to make trade-offs within the defense budget," Linda Bilmes, a lecturer in public policy and finance at Harvard's Kennedy School said told Congress in 2017. "By contrast, the post-9/11 wars have been funded mostly by supplemental appropriations.""