[nomadking]

Government spending was way too high, long before any international financial problems. They were having to borrow to finance the excessive spending long before then.

In a household, if you are having to borrow in order to support your standard of living even though times are good(eg bonuses, overtime), you should be cutting back, as there will inevitably come a time when the overtime etc stops. Even if times remained good, you would have to take out ever increasing loans just to maintain the repayments on the previous loans, never mind the existing spending commitments.

Borrowing in bad times is one thing, but your spending & standard of living has to be such that when good times return, you can repay the loans and not have to borrow even more.