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.