It's a math problem. If taxes are 20% of the GDP and you lower them 50% to 10% of the GDP you will need the GDP to increase 100% to have the same tax revenue. Obviously there are extremes at both ends, where a too high tax rate results in business leaving and tax revenues falling, and a too low tax rate results in an unachievable level of growth to receive the same level of revenue as before the tax cuts.
I am thinking however that if we had a true "pay as you go" system and there was a debt of zero, and therefore for the Iraq Wars Bush would have had to raise taxes and let's say he needed a national referendum to do so. Would that have passed? Something like that would make priorities a lot clearer.
Reagan started this with the free lunch of lower taxes and increased spending by going into debt. It's hard to convince people now that the ride is over and they are looking for easy answers. "They" being the voters also known as us.
Problem is, they've actually studied this, and found that to a certain point, lowering taxes *RAISES* overall revenues. IIRC, the breakover point was around 19% (of GDP, IIRC?) - above or below that, revenues start to fall off. Wish I could remember where I saw that, but I don't. Spend more than that, of course, and you go into (or increase) your debt. But that's all the blood you'll get from the stone, period. The *ONLY* way to reduce debt, from that point, is to REDUCE SPENDING.
If I am remembering this wrong, or am not considering important elements, then I'm certainly willing to be corrected - it's not something I've devoted huge amounts of effort to study of.