For 108 years Americans have been paying a 3% fee on long distance telephone service. Why you ask?

To finance the Spanish-American War silly. Didn’t you know? God only knows how long we’ll be paying weird taxes for Iraq …

But I digress. Yesterday the US Treasury Department ended the Spanish-American War federal excise tax, effectively giving wireless consumers a 3% rebate on their wireless service payments going forward. Whether you lean to the right or to the left, you have to admit that our government does some odd things. But at least this one is over.

Related: The press release