by Craig Ladwig At a small table at an Indianapolis club some years ago, an argument began — or perhaps more an intense discussion. It was between two strong personalities: Luke Kenley, the Noblesville businessman who would become chairman of the state Senate Appropriations Committee, and Stephen Moore, an economist and frequent guest of our foundation who a few years later would join the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. We had brought the…

by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution brought us the federal income tax in 1913. A year later, the 1040 tax form was born. The 1040 had a modest debut but has grown impressively since. The original was so compact it was published on the front page of the New York Times. Today, it has hundreds of supplemental forms and thousands of instruction pages. The supporting tax laws now total more…

by Andrea Neal Although the state constitution expressly prohibited it, slavery existed in early Indiana. Two court cases filed by enslaved black women put an end to the practice. In the early 19th century, Polly Strong and Mary Clark challenged prevailing attitudes to claim their civil rights as U.S. and Indiana citizens. “People get really uneasy about saying Indiana practiced slavery,” said Eunice Trotter, a Clark descendant, who has researched the story. “This is our…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. I persistently characterize my political philosophy as that of a classical liberal. This sows some confusion. Those who share my deep skepticism about the redistributionist tendency of a modern welfare state are usually characterized as conservatives. So why muddy the water? A short political history is in order. For those who follow the PBS series “Downton Abbey,” one cannot help but note that the Crowley family’s wealth flows from their ownership…

by Ryan Cummins An Open Letter to Indiana City Councils The problem: A public-employee union has no check, no market mechanism, to temper its power. The solution: You, the councilman. A free market theoretically provides a check on private-sector unions except that government so often steps in to establish special rules. Couple that with a general body of law biased toward union labor, and we face a situation in which public-employee unions (PEUs) can and…

For the use of the membership only (759 words) “On average (since 1995), 69 percent of nonwhites have identified as Democrats or said they were independents who leaned Democratic, and 21 percent have identified as Republicans or leaned Republican.” — Gallup Politics, March 24, 2014   THE REPUBLICAN PARTY has a crisis. No, it isn’t the national debt, or the imploding social security and health systems, or a snooping homeland police force, or a tyrannical…

by Andrea Neal In the rough-and-tumble world of frontier politics, Jonathan Jennings experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Indiana’s first governor, Jennings was credited with pushing Indiana from territory to statehood, defeating an old guard loyal to William Henry Harrison and insisting that the 16th state would not have slavery. By the time of his death at the young age of 50, Jennings had suffered political defeat, debt and health problems…

Do politicians ever apologize? Should they? And when? What would happen if one said, “I thought my law would do this, but it actually did that, and at great expense to my constituents. I am deeply sorry”? The question occurred to me while listening to my U.S. senator give a stirring speech this week on the need to get Washington off the backs of hometown businesses. “When it comes to regulation, there are examples that…

by Maryann O. Keating, Ph.D. In 1960, garment workers in a four-story walk-up factory in Philadelphia await the return of the shop’s owner-manager from New York. If the fashion industry, headquartered in New York, anticipates a good season, the owner-manager returns with a pattern and stacks of cloth to be assembled by cutters, machine operators, pressers and finishers. First, though, the returning manager sits down at each workstation and demonstrates how to construct a sample…

Now that the Legislature has agreed to let our friends at Ball State University regularly evaluate the effectiveness of the various tax “incentives,” here is a nomination for the next-worst economic-development program. Popular throughout Indiana, it is called a “façade” grant. Tens of thousands of tax dollars are awarded each year to select businesses to dress up their exteriors. We like them not because they work but because they demonstrate what city hall thinks of…