This is the same as it has been in DA (and presumably DL, too).

Unlike in real life there is a huge penalty for deficit spending on governments. The hardest time during the game to avoid deficit spending is early in the game when you are settling new planets and few of your colonies are generating money as opposed to costing money. Something that help is to not rush build planetary improvements until the population of your colony reaches a level to support itself. Another way to get your colonies in the green quicker is to use a colony ship or a transport and move colonists from high population colonies to low population ones. After they reach their destination launch the ship and place one population point back on the ship and return it to a high population colony. That and research the trade tech and establishing trade routes as soon as possible and get two or three routes up and running with your neighbors can get you in the green quicker. If you want to play a peaceful game this also helps your relations with your neighbors until you can get your military going.

I almost never allow my deficit to go over 500 because it kills your empire's growth. With rare exception the penalties far outweigh the benefits of rush building ships or improvements. Unless you are generating enough cash to get you out of debt completely in one or two turns it just isn't worth it. If your technology far outstrips your neighbors you can also sell techs to them for quick cash.

If you're in that much debt, at least with a negative income, you already have a huge morale penalty. I never let it get that bad. The whole idea of having money is that you can't just keep running from the start at 100% and building whatever you like. Early on, I often have to shut my economy down, and bring it back up slowly as my population increases. Usually (as long as you've grabbed enough planets) you should have no problem eventually bringing it up to 100% and keeping it there.

Right, but you should never let it get that bad in the first place. If you've been running at 100% early, you should have a lot of tech that you can sell to get you out of the hole. Getting a loan when you haven't got the economy to sustain it won't help, except to eliminate the morale hit from having a huge negative. You just have to wait until your tax base grows. Enough planets going from .25 to 6 population will put you back in the black. I tend to have to drop to anywhere from 0-15% economy, and I can generally bring it back up a percent or two every turn. You can also pray for an economic boom, which puts you back at 100% unless you're really in bad shape.

This certainly adds a little more to this issue, i'd like to see this option. But who underwrites the loan? I think it would be cool if it was the other races. This then could affect diplomacy and such. And if you refuse to pay, well, the collector turns up and takes your planet...War, the ultimate debt collector's tool.

On the flip side, at various times one of the other races may want a loan and you could offer your services. Something like the lease screen would work fine here, but listing all the pros and cons of taking/giving a loan to a certain race.

Hey, American debt is what, $50 trillion? We're still operational (more or less). Perhaps the debt cap should be 50,000 bc?

mm thats only 1/2 a trillion. 1 trillion = 1000 billion = 1000 million... ect.