COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Gov. John Kasich said Tuesday his efforts to help get states to support a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution are an attempt to make the federal government more fiscally responsible before it is too late.

"This is not a complicated thing," Kasich told reporters Tuesday afternoon before heading to Phoenix. "If the government continues on this path of spending money that they don't have, over time systems will melt down, people will be hurt and our children will be put behind the eight ball."

Kasich, aided by a nonprofit advocacy group that can raise money, is launching a national tour to urge states to call for a constitutional convention to discuss a balanced budget amendment.

On Tuesday Kasich left Ohio for Arizona to promote the idea. He said he may also speak in Idaho before returning to Ohio by the end of the week.

"Practical reality is that if we don't have a constitutional amendment that requires a federal balanced budget it will be hit and miss, we will continue to ring up debt and it is unconscionable what is going on," Kasich said.

"It is another illustration of why it is so important to force government to do what every responsible family tries to do in this country, and that is to have a balanced budget," Kasich said. "Frankly it's an American value that needs to be taught to all politicians and all Americans."

Before leaving for Phoenix, Kasich, with Republican Senate President Keith Faber and state Rep. Jim Buchy, a Greenville Republican, discussed their support for a balanced budget amendment in at a meeting in the Statehouse. U.S. Rep. Steve Stivers, a Republican from Columbus, joined the conversation via telephone.

Here are are some highlights of that conversation:

Get Congress to act

If 34 states pass resolutions of support, Congress could be forced under Article V of the Constitution to call a constitutional convention. That has never happened. The more traditional route is for Congress to propose an amendment and send it to the states for ratification.

That is the preferred route here, too, Kasich said.

So far, legislatures in at least 20 states, including Ohio, have agreed to join a constitutional convention to consider a balanced budget amendment.

"I believe Washington will listen as more states put their notch on the wall to say this is important," Stivers said. "I believe Congress will pass their own balanced budget amendment if we can get more states on the hook to say they're for it."

States at the ready

Faber has been involved with the Assembly of State Legislators, a bi-partisan group, which already has had discussions about what a constitutional convention would look like.

The discussions in that group, he said, have shown support from both Democrats and Republicans for the idea, he said, and it appears several states are ready to move on resolutions calling for the convention.

According to the Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force, one of the leading advocates for the measure, 24 states have active resolutions. Three, including Arizona, have resolutions pending in state senates. Another dozen – mainly out West – are on the task force's list of targets in 2015.

Fear of the future

The national debt has topped $18 trillion. Buchy said his biggest fear is that it will keep rising, and spending to pay the interest demands on the debt will keep rising, to a point where the government will have trouble keeping up with it.

"We have a situation now where ... we're basically spending so fast and getting into so much debt that it's going to get to a point where we are not going to be able to keep up," Buchy said.

Kasich said his view is that debt issues will only grow harder to deal with until they are addressed, and for that reason, the time to act is now.

Stars lining up

The results of the 2014 elections across the country may be a sign for success, Kasich said. While professing to believe that the national debt is a bi-partisan issue, Republicans now hold control in some key positions for pressing the issue.

"You've got a Republican House and a Republican Senate. You've got a majority of conservatives that are running states now and you have the requirement of a balanced budget in the states," Kasich said.

Runaway convention?

Kasich and Faber both discounted concerns some constitutional scholars have raised that a constitutional convention could not be limited to just the balanced budget amendment.

Even if other changes to the Constitution were discussed, they said, any proposed amendments would still require ratification by 38 states to become effective. That, they said, serves as a check and balance on the process.