How did the role of the federal government change during the period following World War I (c. 1918€“1990)?

Following
, the role of the federal government changed drastically, as it became increasingly involved in
the key institutions and sectors of American life. This trend had actually begun even before
World War I with the Progressive Era reforms and with the 1909 passage of the 16th Amendment,
which created the federal income tax. This trend accelerated with the New Deal following the
Great Depression.

Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was based on the concept that
the federal government was vital to the nation's economic stability. With dozens of new
bureaucratic agencies, the New Deal employed millions of Americans, pumped money into the
economy, and established the federal government's central role in the nation's fiscal and
monetary systems. Although conservative Supreme Court decisions at first limited the New Deal's
scope, shifts in the Court led to an increasingly liberal understanding of the Commerce Clause,
which authorized the federal government to become more and more involved in all major aspects of
the nation's life. The Social Security system also carved out a major new role for the federal
government, providing retirement pay and disability protection to the vast majority of
Americans.

World War II and the Cold War which followed it left a massive
permanent military and national security industry in place. During the 1950s and 1960s, battles
over civil rights established federal authority over the states decisively. In the 1960s as
well, new programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, further entrenched the federal government's
power. New Cabinet departments such as Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Housing
and Urban Development, as well as agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, expanded
the reach of federal policy.

By 1990, the federal government had expanded
beyond the dreams of even the most nationalistic of the Founding Fathers, such as Alexander
Hamilton. Although there would be something of a pushback in the form of a number of
conservative Supreme Court decisions, the basic scope of federal authority had grown
dramatically by the end of the twentieth century.