(Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla)

(CNSNews.com) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) twice hinted in her floor speech on Thursday supporting the debt-and-spending deal she had made with Republican congressional leaders and President Donald Trump that Congress might want to consider completely ending the practice of imposing statutory limits on the federal debt.

“I think we all agree, Mr. Ranking Member, that we all want to reduce the deficit, so let us work in a bipartisan way--the national debt--let’s work in bipartisan way to do that,” Pelosi said.

“And while we are at it,” she continued, “we may want to eliminate the vote on the lifting of the debt ceiling each year as well, because the full faith and credit of the United States of America should never, ever be in question.”

Later in her speech, Pelosi said: “Finally, we are safeguarding the full faith and credit of the United States of America by achieving a lifting of the debt limit until July 31, 2021. Perhaps, between now and then, we can work in a bipartisan way to address removing all doubt about whether the debt limit will be increased.”

A Congressional Research Service report—“The Debt Limit: History and Recent Increases”—explain the history of the debt limit and its purpose.

“Congress has always place restrictions on federal debt,” says CRS. “Limitations on federal debt have helped Congress assert its constitutional powers of the purse, of taxation, and of the limitation of war. Between World War I and World War II the form of statutory restrictions on federal debt evolved into an aggregate limit that applied to nearly all federal debt outstanding.”

“The debt limit also provides Congress with the strings to control the federal purse, allowing Congress to assert its constitutional prerogatives to control spending,” says CRS.

“The debt limit,” says CRS, “also imposes a form of fiscal responsibility that compels Congress and the President to take visible action to allow further federal borrowing when the federal government spends more than it collects in revenues.”