Account to Date

1 minute read
TIME

Expressed in dollar bills laid end to end, it would reach from the earth to Venus. By comparison with the past, it was $104 billion more than the U.S. had spent — in war and peace — from 1789 to 1940. In cold figures, it was what the U.S. had spent on World War II from mid-1940 up through V-E day — $276,762,000,000.

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