It is perhaps the most common economic adage used by Tony Abbott – that a government must live within its means, just like every household.

Recently, the Washington Post examined what the average household would look like if it were the US government. So let’s do it for the Australian context, because it rather highlights how the whole “the government should be like a household” analogy is weak.

The latest household income and income distribution data from the ABS has the gross median household income at $75,000. We could use the median equivalised (after tax) income, but that is about $73,000 for a family of three and $86,000 for a family of four, so let’s keep it simple and say this average household (call them the Murrays) earn $75,000 a year.

The government’s income this year is about $369bn and its expenses are $399bn, for a deficit of $30bn.

This would mean the Murrays would spend $81,100 a year and put about $6,100 on their credit card. And, given the gross debt held by the Australian government is currently $275bn, that would mean the Murrays have $55,900 in debt.

The problem for those thinking the government should be more like households is that the current average household debt in Australia, according to the Melbourne Institute, is $151,488. The Reserve Bank estimates that the ratio of household debt to disposable income is 147%. If the Australian government were like the average Australian household, its debt would be almost double the size – about $542bn.

So the analogy is breaking down already, but let’s go further – how would the Murrays spend their $75,000?

For a start they’d spend $4,151 a year on defence. Unfortunately, it is not just to build a big fence; they’re also paying to send one of their sons to Afghanistan to help their uncle Samuel. The son has now been there since 2001 and the Murrays have spent about $1,500 keeping him there.

The good thing is they have built some submarines in the backyard to put in the moat that surrounds their house.

The Murrays now spend $5,600 a year on education – or about 7.5%. Given the typical household spends only about 2.5% of its income on education, this is certainly a jump. But mostly this is because the Murrays now have children in kindergarten, primary school, high school, university and TAFE college, all at the same time.

The Murray family is also pretty sick, so they now spend $12,170, or 16.2%, on health compared to the usual household spend of 5.3% on medical care and expenses. But the average household normally spends 16.5% of their income on food and non-alcoholic drinks, so if we include that as health it looks like it’s not too bad a trade-off.

But the Murrays now spend $26,000 towards redistributing their income to the rest of the family. $10,300 of that is going to Grandma and Grandpa – good thing though is they had been putting money into a jar all their working life, which is helping pay for that.

The big problem is a few in the family aren’t working so they get $1,800 a year (2.4%) to help keep them afloat while they look for work. And 6.4% of the Murray’s income goes towards those in the family with a disability – which isn’t even included in the health bill.

And $6,580 (8.8%) of the $75,000 is going to help out with raising the kids – childcare support and other “family benefits”.

The Murrays now give $1,203 a year to foreigners for aid. That works out at 1.6%, which would make them slightly more generous than the average household, which gives away 1% of yearly expenditure to charity.

Rather annoyingly, the Murrays now have no idea what the weather will be tomorrow, so they need to fund a bureau of meteorology to the tune of $66 a year.

One good thing is the Murrays get to spend less on cars and fuel. They now only spend 3.5% on such things, whereas most homes in Australia spend about 15.6% of their expenditure buying cars, petrol and public transport. Luckily for the Murrays, their in-laws, Mr and Ms States, spend money on public transport. Unfortunately, the Murrays give them $9,600 a year (13%), so I guess they’re chipping in for that as well.

The Murrays do spend less on their home now. Only 2.2% goes toward their house and urban area development. Most households usually spend 18% on housing costs, like rent or mortgage payments and insurance and repairs.

They’re not having that much fun anymore though. The usual household spends 13% on entertainment. But the Murrays now only spend $696 a year, or less than 1%, on recreation. They spend $169 a year on ABC and SBS, so at least they’ve got two TV channels to watch.

But the really great thing for the Murrays is they now print their own money. And bizarrely, even though for the past six years they have been spending more money than they’ve earned, people all over the world still are willing to lend to them at cheap rates. So the Murrays can take out a 10-year loan for 3.86% – rather a bit below the 5.95% the average household has to pay for a mortgage.

It’s almost like people now think the Murrays will live forever and never die leaving debts unpaid!

It also means that the Murray’s debt repayments are only about 3% of their income. They love this because the RBA currently estimates the ratio of interest payments to household income is about 9.5%.

So, bizarrely, the Australian government is actually better at living within its means than the typical household.

Part of the reason is the ability to print its own money. This sounds great until you realise if you were to spend like the average household – i.e. lots of money on fun things and also on spiffying up the already nice McMansion – very quickly its money would become worthless.

The Australian government might not be technically living within its means, but the last thing we should want is for it to start mimicking the typical household.