Category: Indiana Writers Group

I SUPPORTED the legislature enacting a multi-year program for constructing and maintaining our roadways and bridges, public infrastructure which is necessary to economic growth and public convenience. So far, no big deal, but unlike my friends at Indiana Policy Review, I also supported raising the revenue to pay for these improvements through rational and measured…

We learned this legislative session that somewhere in his political career the governor confused fiscal policy with economic policy. Let us hope that our children and grandchildren will not have to pay for the mix-up by having to go elsewhere to find a decent job. Fiscal policy is the use of government revenue collection (mainly…

EACH YEAR the suits in the window offices of the corporate media think up socially aggrandizing projects to justify annual bonuses. It is a gruesome ordeal for all involved. The reporters take the brunt of it. They are sent on bizarre assignments, the points of which are known only to the senior editors who wrote up the formal…

by Fred McCarthy One hundred sixty million dollars — that’s how much the Capital Improvement Board (CIB) three years ago agreed to hand the Pacers basketball team over a period of 10 years, supposedly for operation and maintenance of the field house. There are still seven years to go on that bounty. Just last year,…

by Craig Ladwig In public policy, progressives don’t progress. They stick closely to the revelations of late-night bull sessions in the honors dorm — sophomoric dreams of leveling outcomes, commanding economic development and spreading beauty and light everywhere. The media culture gives us a window into this world through its selection of headlines and guest columns. Telltale signs are…

by Cmdr. John Pickerill After the next census in 2020 the Indiana General Assembly will once again take on the task of redrawing the state’s election districts. Because Republicans hold a super-majority in both the House and Senate in Indianapolis, there is concern they’ll game the system and draw the lines to defend their super-majority…

“Lawmakers need to remind themselves why they voted to repeal ISTEP in the first place. One reason was the chronic computer glitches that occurred during its administration, which had nothing to do with the content of the test. The other was to reduce testing time. The legislature should seize the moment and deliver a shorter…

by Craig Ladwig Some Indiana mayors got together last week to congratulate themselves on thinking big, that is, thinking globally. The takeaway from an Indiana University panel discussion was that if municipal government could turn its attention away from the small-mindedness of Main Street, progress would come, that property free of government encumbrance is an…

by Cmdr. John Pickerill Well, our Indiana Republicans broke another promise. This time it’s their support for repeal and replacement of Obamacare with a free-market solution. The Indiana Republican platform promises, “We believe healthcare decisions should be made by patients, in consultation with their personal physician — not government bureaucrats. We support our Congressional delegation’s…

by T. Norman Van Cott When immigrants, legal or illegal, earn money by working in the United States, what happens to the dollars? One possibility is that they spend them on goods and services sold in the United States, not necessarily on the things that they are producing, but on the wide variety of items…