A Warren County commissioner said maintaining a balanced budget “wasn’t that hard” during his appearance Friday on a nationally televised news program.

Warren County Commissioner Dave Young appeared on the Fox News Channel’s morning show “Fox and Friends” to tout Warren County’s lack of debt and overall prosperity.

“We really don’t think this government stuff is all that hard,” Young told the morning show hosts. “Hard is being out of a job, not being able to make a mortgage payment … running a government and living within your means? Not hard.

“Folks in Washington should try and put aside some of their own petty concerns and say ‘Let’s be a statesmen, let’s step up and try to do what’s right for the country,’ ” Young said in regards to solving the fiscal cliff crisis.

Warren County boasts zero debt, one of only a handful of counties in the state to do so, even while being one of the fastest growing counties in the state.

Young said that he and his fellow commissioners tried to “foster an environment where people and businesses want to come to Warren County” and noted the county had the lowest marginal tax rate of the surrounding counties.

“We know we can only do so much as government,” Young said. “We don’t try to do all things for all people, so in a lot of ways we say ‘no’ more than we say ‘yes…’ It’s easy to make friends in politics by saying yes to everybody. If you think that the checkbook is not really yours or the taxpayers, that it’s somebody else’s and you can pass out money like candy, the world’s going to love you. When you sit and look somebody in the eye and say ‘no’ they tend not to like you, but we’ve got the ability to do that inside Warren County.

Warren County recently passed its 2013 budget, which included the first significant spending increases by the county since 2009. County officials said they would probably have to take on some debt to finance new radio communication equipment. The county is also planning on spending around $6 million to construct a long-delayed expansion to the Court of Common Pleas.

Young said his advice to national politicians would be to “live within your means.”

“It’s always vogue to be fiscally conservative when things get tough, but the way to be financially solid is to be fiscally conservative all the time and save,” Young said. “That’s why we have a $22 million surplus and have a great environment for people to raise their families and run a business.”