FORT WAYNE, IND. (WOWO) Indiana State Comptroller Elise Nieshalla joined Kayla Blakeslee on Fort Wayne’s Morning News to outline Indiana’s leadership role in what she calls a growing national movement to address America’s $38 trillion national debt.

“Indiana, of all the states, Indiana is taking the lead right now in a growing national push to rein in America’s $38 trillion worth of debt,” Blakeslee said in introducing the segment. “And today our state leaders are making that case loud and clear.”

Nieshalla, who serves as Indiana’s chief financial officer, said the issue is both professional and deeply personal.

“As a mom of four, this issue has been a burden on my mind for quite some time,” she explained. “When I had the opportunity to serve in a leading financial officer role for the state of Indiana, I just knew I had to figure out what could be done in this new opportunity.”

Launching a National Debt Crisis Task Force

Nieshalla said she reached out to the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers to propose forming a National Debt Crisis Task Force.

“I pitched them on starting a National Debt Crisis Task Force because I felt like state financial officers from across the country were perfectly positioned to have a very poignant voice on this issue,” she said.

She contrasted Indiana’s fiscal discipline with the federal government’s financial trajectory.

“We are constitutionally bound to have a balanced budget,” Nieshalla noted. “We have turned ourselves around financially from having a great amount of debt to now being the fourth lowest debt per capita state in the nation. We have done the very difficult work to be in a solid fiscal position, but we are vulnerable to the rapidly dissolving financial position of our country under the massive burden of $38 trillion worth of debt.”

According to Nieshalla, the stakes are personal for every American. “Each one of us and every child born today carries over $112,000 of national debt burden on our shoulders.”