A Blatantly Obvious Conclusion About Deficit Reduction

On the five occasions during the past 40 years when the U.S. budget hit surplus, tax revenues were somewhere between 19.5 percent and 20.6 percent of GDP (link).  In 2010, tax revenues were less than 15 % of GDP (link) and are projected to be even lower in 2011 (link).

Furthermore, a majority of Americans (and a majority of Republicans) favor a combination of spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the deficit (link,link).

Furthermore, many of the (Keyensian!) arguments against raising taxes during a weak recovery are also arguments against drastic spending cuts during a weak recovery.

Therefore, I simply can’t understand how it could be anything less than blatantly obvious that any deficit reduction deal attached to raising the debt ceiling MUST NOT include any increase whatsoever in tax revenues (link)!?! (just kidding)