July 7, 2010, on this blog: The Indignant Household Budget
Anybody complaining about deficits who isn’t suggesting, first and foremost, that the unemployed need to be re-employed, is either a fool or a villain or both. If you’re going to be tut-tutting about deficits, then you had better also be screaming bloody murder about unemployment. If you do the former without doing the latter, you supply proof that you don’t understand or care about either one.
The problem is unemployment. The Indignant Politicians and the Deficit Tsk-tsk-forces refuse to acknowledge that because it doesn’t fit neatly into the “We’re righteous, they’re immoral spendthrifts” template of the standard household-budget analogy.
When your household budget is out of balance due to unemployment, then no amount of cost-cutting is going to allow your family to live within its means. When your means is an income of $0 you don’t need austerity or discipline or smug self-righteousness. You need a job.
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