From Ranson in the WSJ, The Revenue Limits of Tax and Spend:
...this year the U.S. government declined to lay out any plan to balance its budget ever again.
and
The feds assume a relationship between the economy and tax revenue that is divorced from reality. Six decades of history have established one far-reaching fact that needs to be built into fiscal calculations: Increases in federal tax rates, particularly if targeted at the higher brackets, produce no additional revenue. For politicians this is truly an inconvenient truth.
Read that whole thing. Related: States’ Tax Collections Falter, Widening Budget Gaps.