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…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. Alice’s Restaurant in Hometown, Ind., makes the best pancakes and tenderloins this side of heaven. It also employs 150 workers; some full-time, some part-time. Suppose Alice, for whatever reason, announces she is going to let go an equivalent of two full-time workers. The sacking could take a number of forms: She could let two full-timers go, she could let four part-time workers go, she could reduce four full-timers to part-time .…

by Andrea Neal It’s a date every Hoosier should know: Dec. 11, 1816. On that day, Indiana became the 16th state. We’ve been observing it formally since 1925, when the Indiana General Assembly passed a law requiring the governor to “issue a proclamation annually designating the eleventh day of December as Indiana Day.” Indiana Code 1-1-10-1 encourages public schools and citizens to celebrate “in appropriate and patriotic observance of the anniversary of the admission of…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. As a former cigarette smoker, I have a nightmare. Somewhere down the road, I get a diagnosis of lung cancer. The doctor tells me the the cancer is treatable, the prospects for a full recovery are better than 60 percent and the costs of the treatments will be around $250,000. Now let’s change the scenario. The doctor tells me the cancer is difficult to treat, but there is hope. A regimen…