It's can't be a suicide pact for the State in the face of a true crisis.
Then everything will be a crisis. Just look at how the Congress has said that everything is "interstate commerce".
If it's truly a crisis, then the critters need to take money away from the "nice-to-have" programs and use that money to solve the crisis.
I mean look at what the candidates are proclaiming, we have a Healthcare Crisis, an Education Crisis, a Homeless Crisis, a Poverty Crisis, etc, etc....
It does need to be a suicide pact. A political suicide pact.