Most of the "situationally useful" need for running deficits have involved war. Those representatives who vote for running deficits to support a war should be committed enough to such a cause to lose their jobs. There are, after all, military servicemen and women who have much more to lose in such cases.
In recent history the "situations" have moved into the realm of domestic spending, i.e. the Pelosi/Reid/Obama Health Care plan which most of the nation opposed. If sitting politicians believe in such a cause so much that they were willing to lose their seat in Congress, then I would shake their hand as they made their way out the door.