it’s been reiterated so many times that what’s “fiscally prudent” for a government is completely different to what’s fiscally prudent for a household, but in some ways it’s actually not that different: while households cannot print their own money, they can borrow against future earnings, which is a very similar thing; someone who takes on student debt and then a mortgage is essentially deficit spending on the basis that this investment will grow GDP faster than the debt, otherwise they wouldn’t do it, similarly when a government spends money it just printed it’s ideally a way of driving productive investment that will make everyone richer in the long term.
no one can actually live beyond their means, by definition! but this is a roundabout way of saying that people will stop lending you money if you show no inclination to devote it to productive uses and hence can’t pay it back.
governments can print money instead of borrowing, but if they don’t devote it to productive uses then their money will quickly become worthless.
so fiscal prudence ultimately always boils down to whether you think government spending or private spending is going to be more productive in the long run, and it’s common to assume that governments are terrible at “picking winners” or whatever except of course so are private investors, moreover they often want high returns with no risk and thus chase one speculative bubble after another rather than funding projects that might build up the national industrial base over decades or anything as mundane as that.
fiscal prudence == don’t tax me bro