John Boehner's argument in this debt ceiling debate is that Washington needs to operate under the same economic principles as the American family.  He maintains that like your household budget, when debt gets out of hand in Washington, we need to cut spending.  

But Boehner misses a point and my guess is he misses it deliberately.  In the "family budget" that is Washington, there are more than one or two bread winners.  

The Washington government family is like the typical American family with moms and dads working to support themselves and their children, but unlike the typical American family, the Washington government family has a wealthy uncle who has a private suite on the top floor of the house.  

This uncle pays a share of the mortgage and utilities.  He also convinced the family to make significant home improvements to the house, mostly benefitting him with an expanded balcony off his suite, Italian marble bath, and three car garage to house his collection of sports cars.   He assured them that the money was all there in the house; all they had to do was remortgage the property and there would be plenty of money.

This same uncle, through his status as majority shareholder of the local mill, sent the jobs overseas to enrich his personal portfolio even though it resulted in the unemployment of the mom & dad who lived downstairs.

So now we are at a point where mom & dad have found a few lower paying part time jobs, their kids can no longer afford piano lessons or a vacation at the beach and the bank is calling every month because the mortgage is close to default.   Refinancing is not possible because contrary to the uncle's advice, the house is worth far less than the amount of the mortgage.  In short, the family is looking at becoming homeless unless someone does something.  

They've already cut back.  They've already agreed to work harder for lower wages and fewer benefits.  What this family needs is for the uncle to be responsible, behave as American families do and help his family. 

The only problem is that in Boehner's world, the uncle accepts no responsibility for the plight of his impoverished family.  What Boehner's proposed budget would do is transfer ownership of the house to the uncle where he could charge rent to his relatives, maybe even evict them if he thought their credit was not worthy.  Where would they go?  Who knows?  Who cares?  Yeah, just another example of good old Republican Family Values.