The foundation’s white papers are intended to make scholarly research on Indiana issues more widely available to policy analysts and researchers. White Papers represent research in progress and are published to invite comment and discussion as preparation for their submission to academic journals and other professional publications. by Maryann O. Keating, Ph.D. Shuffling through  health insurance paperwork, do you sometimes wonder if your neighbor is equally confused? Does the saga of the One Big Beautiful…

by Nathanael Snow, Ph.D. Indiana, like most other states, redraws its Congressional voting districts every 10 years when a new Census comes out. Shifts in population within and among states require that new lines are drawn to balance the number of citizens represented in each district. This helps to preserve the connection of citizens to their representatives, who are responsible for making decisions about how to spend the Federal government’s budget. Participants from every part of…

Andre Carson Part III GERRYMANDERING is not an issue for serious minds. It rests on the absurd notion that legislators should choose voters rather than voters choose legislators. Nevertheless, the meeting here Thursday between Gov. Michael Braun and Vice-President J.D. Vance to discuss redistricting requires that it be addressed anew. The late Jim Knoop, a friend of this foundation and a GOP consultant, was snooping around in an attic of the Statehouse many years ago and…

Andre Carson, Part II  I don’t have any reasonsI’ve left them all behindI’m in a New York state of mind — Billy Joel NEW YORK CITY is poised to elect an Islamist mayor and at least the prospect of Sharia Law, “no go” zones, globalization of the infidel, anti-semitism and so forth, not to mention a historically ignorant race-Marxism. It makes you grateful to live in stodgy old Indiana, doesn’t it? Wait, what? Indiana’s capital is already represented by a…

Excerpts from Paul Fussell’s 1981 article in the New Republic commemorating the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima 80 years ago this week: Arthur T. Hadley said recently that those for whom the use of the A-bomb was “wrong” seem to be implying “that it would have been better to allow thousands on thousands of American and Japanese infantrymen to die in honest hand-to-hand combat on the beaches than to drop those two bombs.” People holding…

The Legislative Experiment “Decrepitude remains the path of least resistance for the institution that is supposed to be the beating heart of American self-government.” — Phillip Wallach WE ALL ARE TIRED of complaining about Congress so let’s abandon it as sunk cost. We may be obligated to maintain the payroll and provide a place for it to meet, and time available we should continue to monitor as best we can its incursion on our liberty and property,…

by Mark Franke It is August now and for baseball that means the July 31 trading deadline has passed. For major league teams it is the best opportunity to upgrade rosters for those with playoff potential, or to unload high salaries and impending free agents for those with no hope for October baseball. For minor league teams such as the Fort Wayne TinCaps, it is a bittersweet moment. The TinCaps lost their two middle infielders,…

by Tyler Watts, Ph.D. The history of American capitalism is littered with the dashed hopes and shattered dreams of failed entrepreneurs. Seldom does a business failure story make for compelling Hollywood drama, but the 1989 film Tucker: the Man and His Dream does just that. The movie tells a heroic, riveting story of a revolutionary business that ultimately collapsed in failure and scandal. Tucker tells, in a highly dramatized fashion, the true and fascinating story of automobile pioneer Preston…

The Somali Perspective MANA ABDI, a state representative in Maine, says that moving to America from Somalia was a “boot camp” and she abhorred the housing provided her. “They first put me in Kansas of all places,” she says. Other Somali leaders have made similarly disparaging comments, making clear that they prefer what they consider their superior culture over the traditional American one. In my later years I have been trying to put the most…

Richard J. McGowan 773 words A widely used phrase in newspapers and on campuses across America, including the one where I taught, is ‘social justice.’  In fact, my school implemented a committee to design a required, social justice component for students.  Was that smart?  The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that “Western philosophers generally regard justice as the most fundamental of all virtues for ordering interpersonal relations and establishing and maintaining a stable political society.” …