Then you simply don't have enough buildings/commercial/industry that is making you money. Build more, invest in your industry and it will go up. There comes a point where you build enough industry to offset your expenditures. Really that's all this economy is about, having more industry that makes money than having stuff that costs money, so just spend your money to build more income producing buildings instead of amenities. However how your people will react will depend on the overall difficulty settigns I believe. In a sandbox game simply start off by building a couple more farms and a logging building and let the game run, you will see that you have a positive income what with exports and the US/USSR extra money, after a couple seasons.