The crisis was averted, but the problem is far from over.

President Joe Biden signed an agreement over the weekend that raised the debt ceiling in exchange for certain spending cuts.

The deal allows the country to continue to borrow money to pay for debt it has already accrued as well as for continued operations that Congress has already approved. Had a deal not been reached, the U.S. would have been unable to pay its bills, which would have had some serious consequences to the country and to financial markets around the world.

“No one got everything they wanted but the American people got what they needed,” Biden said, highlighting the “compromise and consensus” in the deal. “We averted an economic crisis and an economic collapse.”

The deal was essential, and we should not have doubted that Democrats and Republicans would have come together long enough to get it done. It’s a sign of today’s fractious politics that we did.

But the United States remains $31 trillion in debt. That debt grew by $1.4 trillion last year.

With the immediate crisis settled, Congress now needs to look at reducing those huge numbers.

Realize up front, this is going to hurt. There may be waste in federal spending, but there’s not $31 trillion in waste. There may be corruption, but there’s not $31 trillion worth of corruption. Small fixes won’t solve the problem.

A debt solution will involve changes to Social Security, to Medicare, to Medicaid and to the Affordable Care Act. Such programs are the largest share of the federal budget, and Congress can do little to control their costs as they are currently designed.

A debt solution will involve reconsidering our military commitments. The largest part of the budget that Congress can actually control goes to the Pentagon. Lengthy engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan have spent untold dollars. Troops are stationed throughout the world on a variety of missions. The U.S. continues to seek more advanced — and expensive — weaponry.

A debt solution won’t rely only on spending cuts, though. To eliminate $31 trillion in debt, tax increases are inevitable. Part of the recent dramatic increase in the debt was a popular tax cut in 2017.

The debt solution would not be popular. Everyone would find something to hate in it. Every part of it would require tradeoffs between fiscal responsibility and other important goals.

The debt ceiling agreement is a start, but there’s a lot more work to do before the United States is back in the black.