Is household spending a useful analogy for a national economy?

'We spent too much so we have to tighten our belts now,' is the call and this persuades a lot of people because it resonates with lived experience. If I spend more than my income and get into debt, then it makes sense that I cut back on my spending to get out of debt. The only problem with this analogy is that an individual person or household is not a national economy. Despite being widely believed as 'common sense,' this analogy is in fact a load of old bollox. Pardon my French.

In a national economy, my spending is your income and my income is your spending. If everyone cuts at once (which they do in troubled times) then the whole country goes into recession. Businesses have no customers and lay off staff who then have less money to spend etc. This is why Governments need to buck the trend in troubled times and borrow more in the short term in order to stimulate growth.

So counter-intuitively, a recession is a time when a government should spend more not less. Full employment should be the priority so that everyone is productive and you are not paying as many benefits. A bit of inflation is no disastrous thing, compared with the alternative.