so... emergency provisions? the congress should run at or just below 100% of the federal receipts. in times of crisis, they would be able to bring it up an additional 25% or roughly $500b on receipts of $2,105b
of course, there could also be the concept of a ‘savings account’ were the congress, having only spent 95% of the receipts and the debt was below 5%, could have saved the 5% for a rainy day... like the rest of us do.
Who gets to decide what a “time of crisis” is? Is the war on drugs a crisis? swine flu epidemic? war on terrorism? war on fat kids? war on poverty?