The Indiana Policy Review

Category: Indiana Writers Group

  • Bohanon: To Sharpen a Point on the Obama Pencil

    by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. Barack Obama and progressive Democrats are correct: No one builds a business on their own. This is a truism and truisms should be recognized as true. But it also is a straw man. There is no argument that the production and distribution of goods and services requires cooperation. Most all recognize…

  • Neal: Why Women Don’t Run for Political Office

    For release Sept. 5 and thereafter (660 words) by Andrea Neal One day after Ann Romney’s Republican National Convention speech, the Associated Press devoted an entire article to her “tasteful, conservative and appropriate wardrobe.” Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice delivered an issue-packed endorsement of Mitt Romney, and Wall Street Journal Live responded with a…

  • Indiana’s Retirement Fund: A Sucker Bet?

    by PHIL TROYER, J.D. Many years ago, I traveled to Las Vegas to attend a wedding. While there, I struck up a conversation with a young man who worked at the hotel in which we were staying. “Do you gamble much?” I asked. “No,” he replied. “I used to, but then I looked around at…

  • The Outstater: Conventions and Why Words Matter

    As an old editor I concede that you can be too picayunish about words. It no longer makes any difference whether you write auto or motorcar, to pick an example from my vintage stylebook. But some words (liberty, God, Jerusalem, heroism, compassion) matter to some more than others. When they lose their meaning, people lose parts of themselves. Dr.…

  • Neal: A Two-Century Tradition of Negative Attacks

    For release Aug. 29 and thereafter (660 words) by Andrea Neal Don’t blame Mitt Romney and Barack Obama for the ugly tone of the 2012 presidential race. Blame John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. They started it. The Election of 1800 was the first time candidates campaigned on partisan platforms, and it’s been that way ever…

  • The Outstater: ‘Canute, a Man for Our Times’

    We all know there’s been a shift in political posture from vision to reality. Hard times do that. The question, though, is whether your councilman or legislator will make the turn. Most sitting Hoosier politicians, Republican or Democrat, were elected on “the vision thing,” as George H. Bush once called it. Now they’re trying mightily…

  • Bohanon: ‘Kelo in My Backyard’

    by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. Ball State University (full disclosure: my employer) is seeking to acquire property adjacent to campus in order to build facilities that will  “house 50 dorm rooms, 100 hotel rooms, a series of conference rooms, a student-run retail area and two restaurants.” The expected cost of the project is around $25 million.…

  • Inflation Worries? You Can’t Trust the CPI

    by MARYANN O. KEATING, PH.D. There is no such thing as a perfect price index. Perfection in price indices requires that the prices of all products increase by the same percentage and that product quality plus the relative amounts of each product category remain constant.  Nevertheless, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), generated by the Bureau…

  • The Olympics: Falling Back to Get Ahead

    For immediate release (563 words) by JOHN KESSLER, M.A. The London Olympics was a showcase of talent and human ability by athletes from all over the world. The games, though, were not without some scandalous behavior. The badminton teams from China, Indonesia and South Korea were disqualified for trying to throw their match, and in…

  • Reforming Child Welfare Isn’t so Easy

    For release Aug. 15 and thereafter (720 words) by Andrea Neal Running the Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS) is harder than being Marion County juvenile judge “by a factor of 18,” Jim Payne concedes. Within days of being tapped by Gov. Mitch Daniels to head the new cabinet-level department, Payne recognized the challenge: Combining…