How to solve the U.S. tax problem:

"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."

source -- Leona Helmsley 

"Do not tax people. Tax the products and services they consume."

source -- unknown

What can the U.S. do to get more tax revenue?

Probably the best thing to do is to do what Canada has done in the past:

1. Admit you have a problem. 

2. Lowering taxes when the government is broke is generally, not a good idea.. 

3. Tax consumption rather than people. The more you consume, the more you pay. What is a fairer system than that?

4. Now that you have implemented point #3 and have embedded a tax on products and services, you are free to increase these taxes in future years. Canada is particularly good at this.

5. Tax reform. Remember Leona Helmsley's famous quote? She was likely referring to deductions. Specifically, rich people have deductions, the little people (like you and I) don't.  You can lower the tax rate and quietly drop some deductions. Now you have more tax revenue and have a lower tax rate if you want.

6. Subsidies. Canadians are continually astonished that many rich people in the U.S. live in subsidized housing. We sort of recommend that governments subsidize poor people. Just a thought. 

7. Don't kid ourselves. We all know that sooner or later we'll all have to pay tax for online purchases. If I was a tax collector looking for extra revenue, I would look here first.

8. Remember this important equation: revenues minus expenses equals money in the bank. You can have more money in the bank by doing two things. Increase revenue and/or decrease expenses. Preferably, you want to do both at the same time. We've talked about increasing revenues, but government needs to cut back spending at the same time they are increasing revenues.

9. Austerity does work and Canadians went through it to get our fiscal house back in order (1990's). Canadians messed up big but we got back on track in surprisingly, a short period of time. America can do this too.