Gain money; Setting up colonies. They have an initial cost in industry and wealth, but tax and trade make it up fairly quickly. Even just throwing a few thousand infrastructure on a useless world will make a decent amount in trade goods and tax (and compounds quickly with each additional).
If you run out of money, production drops way down the toilet. Something that would have taken less than a year now takes more than 5. The more in debt the government is, the greater the production/research/anything penalty is. And it multiplies with the other penalties. (75% due to overcrowding + 75% due to debt will have the modifier at ~56%)
