01/09/2017
https://www.congress.gov...
"However, the August 2011 debt ceiling increase resulted in the only real reduction in the growth of spending, $2.1 trillion, and it was a firm commitment and law to reduce spending by $2.1 trillion."
"Right, well, fundamentally, is it not true that the deficits continue to rise and rise steadily because they are increasing faster than economic growth?"
"And it also increases the risk, as Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson told us, of a fiscal crisis that might occur."
"We cannot continue on this course. Bowles and Simpson told us in this very room that this Nation has never faced a more predictable financial crisis."