Do we really have a revenue problem?
...In fifty years, we have tripled overall federal revenue, and prior to the current recession/stagnation we had quadrupled it. The current trough from the 2007 peak resulted from the fall in economic activity, not from tax cuts or any other intervention. It’s similar to what happened in the prior trough, when the 2000-1 recession and the 9/11 attacks cut economic activity through 2003.

For that matter, look what happened to federal revenue after the much-maligned Bush tax cuts took full effect in 2003. Economic activity expanded rapidly — and so did federal revenues. In fact, the economy during that period boomed, and receipts from both personal and corporate taxes peaked as a result. The Bush tax rates, as they are properly called today, did not create a revenue vacuum; they helped produce an expansion that enhanced rather than lost revenue....

...While revenues have tripled during this period, federal spending has more than quintupled. The economic expansion of the 1990s (including the dot-com bubble) temporarily raised revenue above the spending trendline, but the slope on spending increased in the early 2000s, and practically launched spaceward in 2007 when Democrats took control of Congress. Had spending increased at a rate of inflation from 2001 forward, we would probably not been in deficit at all....