The root cause of the problem happens long before the meaningless semiannual debt limit ritual.
The root cause is that Congress approved more spending, while also approving tax cuts, so that the spending isn't funded by tax revenue.
The whole debt limit fiasco doesn't fix this fundamental problem. The debt limit nonsense is just coming along later, after all the spending and tax cut legislation has been signed into law, and threatening to default on the nation's obligations.
It's like trying to solve the problem of leaving the barn doors open and letting the horses escape by coming along after the horses are gone and threatening to burn down the barn.