However, given the depth of the recession, even these historically high balances proved insufficient to fully buffer the budgets of most states. Thus, governments may wish to revisit their criteria for accumulating and using fiscal reserves.
Building an adequate reserve fund during good times may not be politically popular, but doing so can pay off during bad times as well as lessen the tendency to overspend when times are good. In principle, some smoothing of expenditures over good and bad times could also take place through the capital budget.