January 10  This Day in History   Jan 10, 1967:  Johnson asks
for more funding for Vietnam War   Desperate for more military
funding, Johnson proposed a six-percent surcharge tax on
personal and corporate incomes. Johnson's tax proposal, approved
by Congress in March 1967, backfired with an American public
tiring of the controversial war. Previously ambivalent Americans
protested the government's demand on their pocketbooks for a war
that was beginning to appear impossible to win. As a result,
Johnson's popularity waned toward the end of 1967. By year's
end, a total of 19,560 troops had died in more than a decade of
hostilities. The Viet Cong's surprise Tet Offensive in January
1968 convinced the majority of the public and many U.S.
political and military leaders that the war could not be won.
Johnson realized support for his administration had
disintegrated and decided not to run for re-election in 1968.
His successor, Richard Nixon, although staunchly anti-communist,
won the election largely based on promis