Balanced Budget Amendment

At today's press conference, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and fellow House Republicans proposed the passage of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

Both Boehner and Cantor have pointed out time and again that "Washington doesn't have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem."

To achieve a future balanced budget, it might be useful to see what the revenue and spending looked like the last time the budget was balanced.

The table above comes from a press release Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel K. Inouye: "Domestic Discretionary Spending Flat Since 2001; Not Responsible for Growing Debt (PDF)"

If the Republicans chose to balance the budget by cutting all expenses back to 2001 levels, current revenues would still produce a $407 billion deficit.