Jack Kelly notes here that revenues have never been enough to match spending, going all the way back to WWII:
The problem is spending. Outlays rose from $1.863 trillion in FY 2001 to an estimated $3.819 trillion in this fiscal year, 105 percent in 10 years. The federal government now consumes 24 percent of the gross domestic product. (Since 1903, federal spending has averaged a hair over 20 percent of GDP). ...
Since World War II, federal tax revenues have averaged 18 percent of GDP. Income tax rates varied widely during this period, and there were both booms and busts. But tax revenues never exceeded 20.6 percent of GDP. That seems to be a ceiling -- no matter what economic conditions are or how high rates are raised -- and it suggests the budget cannot be balanced unless spending is held below 20 percent of GDP.
So tax hikes can't close the budget gap. But they could clobber the moribund recovery, making the deficit worse.
Democrats want Republicans to accept real tax hikes in exchange for mostly phantom spending cuts. Because they are unwilling to do so, many journalists describe Republicans as "intransigent." But the truly intransigent, it seems to me, are those who want to go on spending as if there were no problem.
