More: One can argue that Johnson's war budgetary policy was a lynchpin of sorts (i.e., no war, no deficits), but that assumes a deficit-inflationary link. Besides, it's simply playing what-if games with history anyway. It's not reasonable argument. In addition, raising taxes to pay for Vietnam would have been electoral suicide, and I doubt the Democrats in Congress would have stood by for that, since they had to face the voters in '66, while Johnson had until '68 to complete his own political seppuku.