Tackling The National Debt & Balancing Regulatory Powers: Jonathan Williams on The Hugh Hewitt Show
What we see at the state level every day is the men and women of ALEC are out there balancing budgets.
Hugh Hewitt spoke last week with ALEC President and Chief Economist Jonathan Williams about Indiana’s national debt resolution and the repeal of the 2009 EPA endangerment finding as a step toward restoring constitutional balance in regulatory powers.
The conversation began with Hewitt asking Williams about his recent visit to Indiana and his meeting with Governor Mike Braun.
“Governor Braun was a phenomenal US Senator before he was Governor,” Williams said. “He’s somebody that raised a lot of awareness around our national debt, challenges that we have as a country, and that’s what we’re going to be doing; talking about the new ALEC resolution that’s based on Indiana Senate Resolution talking about, really the national debt in terms of a national security challenge.”
Continuing on that topic, Williams focused on tools states can adopt to ensure fiscal responsibility. He emphasized the importance of balancing budgets at the state level.
“What we see at the state level every day is the men and women of ALEC are out there balancing budgets,” he noted. “Forty-nine of the 50 states have a balanced budget requirement.”
Hewitt then shifted the conversation to the repeal of the EPA endangerment finding, a significant deregulatory effort by the Trump administration. Williams explained that the repeal represents a return to a proper constitutional balance of powers, with decisions on regulatory powers being made by elected officials rather than unelected bureaucrats.
“It is this return to a discussion around who should decide the major questions of regulatory powers, and it relates to the economy,” Williams stated. “Viewers may disagree on that, I’m sure they do, but who should be deciding it is the more important question. It’s a return to a proper constitutional balance of powers.”