In the USA, federal government revenues are currently running just over 3% GDP BELOW their 40 year average of 18% GDP. This is mostly the result of the combined effects of the recession as well as various tax cuts that were enacted during Bush's term, plus the extension of those tax cuts by Obama in an effort to stimulate the economy. Our recent record deficits and scary projections of the same are the result of a combination of spending at record levels (around 25% GDP, 5% GDP ABOVE their 40 year average), and the lowest revenues as a percent of GDP since 1950 (about 15% GDP, 3% lower that the 40 year average). The Left refuses to either acknowledge or deal with the spending aspect of this asymmetric problem, seeing the deficits as mostly a lack of revenues due to insufficient taxes, a la Bush. The Right chalks up the excessive low levels of revenue almost entirely to the recession, ignoring the negative contribution of the continuing tax cuts to the deficits (a la Laffer), focusing almost entirely on the spending aspect of the problem. If we use the 40 year averages of spending and revenues as a baseline, the ratio of our overspending to our lower than average revenues is about 5.5/3 (or about 1.. That is, for every dollar we are lacking in revenues, we are overspent by $1.80. The Left would attempt to balance this situation by increasing revenues by $2.80 - the Right would seek to cut spending by $2.80. If we could say that on the average, life was good over the last 40 years and we could prosper at those 40 year average levels of spending and revenues, common sense would say that we should raise revenues by $1.00, while simultaneously cutting spending $1.80. Eventually, our spending and revenues would meet at their 40 year average levels. If that approach seems reasonable, then what we need in the US right now is for both Left and Right to expand their horizons by understanding their own willful blindness to their own particular contribution to the problem - and then cooperatively legislate accordingly. So far there is no sign that either side will ever be willing to drag their heads up out of their ideological holes and witness the more complete reality. And so, we'll probably continue to be impotent in dealing with deficit spending into the foreseeable future.