It would take almost $16,000 more from every household in America to balance the budget just this year. To grab this money from top income-bracket earners, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), we’d have to hike their tax rates to between 80% and 90%. The CBO noted earlier this year in its budget report that “[h]igh tax rates would slow the growth of the economy, making the spending burden harder to bear.”
Like kids, Congress can break anything if they mess with it long enough.