The national “Campaign to Fix the Debt” plans to launch state-level initiatives tomorrow and State Senator Bill Dix of Shell Rock, a Republican, has signed on to be the campaign’s Iowa chairman.

“For a long time I’ve witnessed our representatives in Washington allow debt to just ratchet out of control and hopefully we can convince people that now is the time, even though it’s the 11th hour, we still can fix the problem,” Dix says. “We just need to get everybody at the table, sit down and recognize that it hampers job growth and opportunities and unfairly taxes our future generations.”

In 2010 a Democrat who worked in Bill Clinton’s White House and a long-time Republican senator from Wyoming offered a prescription for fixing the federal government’s fiscal problems, but it was not embraced by the president or by congress. The two men launched “The Campaign to Fix the Debt” last week. The campaign’s website has this headline: “Inaction Is Not An Option.”

“What the voters have said is they want Republicans and Democrats alike to recognize the importance of finding a solution and getting it enacted,” Dix says, “sooner rather than later.”

President Obama and leaders in congress began last week to talk about a compromise that would avoid what some have called the “fiscal cliff” that will kick in on January 1st if congress and the president can’t agree on an alternative federal budget plan.

“Let’s not lose hope,” Dix says. “We need to be mindful that our elected officials will listen. I believe that can happen and let’s just make sure that everybody takes the opportunity to make their voice heard.”

Dix served a decade in the Iowa House before an unsuccessful run for congress in 2006. Dix was elected to the Iowa Senate in 2010 and for the past two years has served as the top Republican on the Iowa Senate Appropriations Committee. Dix had served as chairman of the same committee when he was a member of the Iowa House.