It’s late and I’m tired, but another TV pundit once again used the example of the family budget to assert that the federal government ought to have to live within its means in exactly the same way that the American family does.  This time it was David Gergen on some PBS or ABC show.  I can’t remember, because I wasn’t really watching.  Someone else had turned it on, and I just heard it.

I am so sick of this analogy.  It simply doesn’t work for a number of reasons:

1) It’s based on a false premise.  Most American households carry debt, be it a mortgage, student loans, car payment, credit card debt or something else.  Ideally this is planned and the family can keep up with payments, but far too often that is not the case.  So many people live paycheck to paycheck.
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