'There can’t be many voters, let alone economists, who don’t see this as madness. George Osborne sold austerity to the nation in 2010 with a bad yet persuasive metaphor, filched from Margaret Thatcher, comparing the state to a household: it can’t go on spending more than it makes for ever and ever; eventually debts are called in. Back then, the obvious riposte – that the state isn’t a household and shouldn’t be run like one – won over only a few. But no one still thinks the state is like a household now.'
https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/september/executive-action