Leadership is not repeating your opposition’s talking points, especially when they are not true and will be destructive to the economy at this time.  It is a false analogy to say government is just like a household or a firm.  It is not. It doesn’t function that way. Further, we cannot reduce unemployment by refusing to fill open job slots.  From the Washington Post, Obama says federal jobs may stay vacant, doesn’t rule out furloughs:

Obama said that just as people and companies have had to be cautious about spending, “government should have to tighten its belt as well. We need to do it in an intelligent way. We need to make sure we do things smarter, rather than just lopping something off arbitrarily without having thought it through.”

He has asked agencies to develop plans for cutting budgets by 5% €ƒpercent. But how that would be accomplished would be decided on a case-by-case basis, he said.

“In some cases, they may say we don’t need to fill vacancies,” he said.