A common meme of the loony right is that of austerity is the key to success and specifically that "I have to balance my budget (FALSE) and so should the government."
And I agree the federal government does need to act more like a household....such as...
Typical household spending.
Government Spending
The Average American household spends almost 34.5% of their paycheck on Housing.
The federal, state and local governments spend about 1.4%
The average household spends about 15.6% on Transportation.
Government, about 4%.
About 13% on food, government, not even listed.
Now of course the government does spend a lot on some things households don't spend much on, defense, healthcare (primarily because they are the primary provider for Seniors) and education.
But I mean if we are going to be more like households, I mean if we REALLY want to make the analogy, we should seriously cut back on all defense spending, healthcare spending and education spending.
Let's do this right!
P.S. Of course I am not necessarily advocating any particular spending increases or cuts (although I do have ideas of course), I am trying to highlight the absurdity of using a household financial model to the Government. They are different, very different and for good reason, they have different responsibilities and capabilities.