Hoosier leaders gathered Monday to highlight their latest legislative call for a solution to the nation’s ballooning debt — with the support of an influential right-wing policy group.
“We have become a model of fiscal responsibility, but we are vulnerable to the rapidly dissolving financial position of our country,” said Comptroller Elise Nieshalla, who leads a National Debt Crisis Task Force for the conservative State Financial Officers Foundation.
She backed House Resolution 28, recognizing the national debt as a national security threat and calling on Congress to establish “an effective regular order for budgeting.” The declaration comes a year after the Senate approved a similar effort, Senate Resolution 51.
Nieshalla recalled asking Jonathan Williams, the president and chief economist at the American Legislative Exchange Council, if there was “any way you could turn this … into a model resolution and get it passed in as many of the 50 states as possible?”
ALEC, which promotes model conservative legislation to state lawmakers, finalized the model last summer. Ten other states are weighing the resolution now, per Nieshalla.
“We’re so excited today to launch this national effort, from an ALEC perspective, to help educate the American people, and to state legislators across the country, (about) the dire state of affairs of our national debt and what can be done about it,” Williams said.
The state efforts were based off Gov. Mike Braun’s own U.S. Senate Resolution 600. It was agreed to in 2024, his last year in Congress.
“When I did that resolution, it has to be juxtaposed to the fact that, as a privilege motion, I took a bill to the Senate floor about balancing our budget over 10 years, not even including interest,” Braun said. “Every Democrat voted against it. One-third of the Republicans at the national level voted against it. What does that tell you?”
“This isn’t going to be solved willingly by the people that are running our country at any level,” Braun added. He said the debt fight was one reason he left the Capitol, “because it was like talking to the side of my barn back home.”
Voters approved a balanced budget amendment to the state constitution in 2018, after it passed two successive classes of the General Assembly. ALEC has also adopted that as a model.
“We think it’s the gold standard,” Williams said.
“Every year we have an honestly balanced budget, so we are leading the charge,” said Sen. Linda Rogers, R-Granger. She also serves as a state chair for ALEC.
“We’ve established the roadmap, so it’s time that we make America like Indiana,” she said to applause.
The news conference, held in at the Statehouse, prompted pushback.
Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis, criticized his GOP colleagues for supporting the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is expected to add $3.4 trillion to the national debt by 2035.
“While Indiana Republicans offered lip service today about lowering the national debt, they have taken steps to import this fiscally irresponsible policy by bringing Indiana in line with the excessive cuts,” DeLaney said in a news release. “… Passing down a $52 trillion national debt to our children and grandchildren is irresponsible and unsustainable. Let’s get serious and prioritize popular programs that help Hoosiers instead of tax cuts for the mega-rich.”
He and other Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee supported the resolution Monday afternoon, however. It advanced to the floor unanimously.
Republicans on the committee did reject a Democratic amendment that would have educated students on how much the national debt increased, as expressed in both dollars and a percentage, during the term of each president.
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