In advance of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we are making a special request for $1,000 donations. We intend to produce “An Agenda for the 2020s” that examines public policy issues of our day through a lens informed by the Declaration. We are $10,000 from our goal. We will not be asking for more or asking for support for other projects these next 12 months. If we don’t do this for Indiana nobody…

by Mark Franke Against my better judgment I have followed some of the news about President Donald Trump’s indictment. I’m not a lawyer and have never played one on TV so I can’t offer a considered opinion on the outcome. That, and not having read the legal documents containing the charges nor heard any of the defense, relegates any comment I might make to simple prejudice. But then, it seems that condition afflicts almost everyone…

Click HERE to update your membership. Your tax-free support makes possible the journal, policy seminars and our weekly backgrounders and columns. Regular journal distribution begins July 1. The annual seminar is Dec. 8-9 (register here). IF INDIANA’S ECONOMIC AGENCIES are ineffective at actually creating wealth they are super effective at changing a region’s political makeup and economic strategy. Policies proven to attract investment such as guarantees of property rights, lower taxes, public safety, open competition, freedom from regulation, etc., are abandoned…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D. In 1982, my wife Barbara and I were expecting our first child. We were both apprehensive and excited.  Our excitement, however, was closely matched by the obstetrician’s excitement. “I just got a new machine, the latest technology for understanding pregnancy.  It enables me to see inside the womb. Do you mind if I use it to see how you are doing, Barbara?” We consented, and he performed an ultrasound scan of our first child. Ultrasounds in the…

“SO GO DOWNTOWN; Where all the lights are bright; downtown waiting for you tonight; downtown you’re gonna be alright; downtown, downtown,” or so Petula Clark sang in 1964. Indiana’s major cities, as we note in the upcoming quarterly journal, are losing their regular citizens. Regular citizens? Yes, the kind that pay taxes, hold full-time jobs, buy things, look to one day owning secure property, perhaps raising a family and not getting mugged regularly. But that is…

by Mark Franke This is the season of patriotic display on my cul-de-sac. Three important patriotic holidays occur within a six-week period: Memorial Day, Flag Day and Independence Day. I call this the patriotic pause, a pause to reflect. Several years ago one of the neighbors suggested we put a few small flags along the street to mark the summer holidays. A few soon doubled in number and eventually all neighbors joined in. Memorial Day…

by Leo Morris Niki Kelly, in a column for the news organization Indiana Capital Chronicle, expresses a forlorn disappointment in Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch. It seems that Crouch, in all the time Kelly has been covering her as a journalist, “has never really been about politics” but has worked instead on “moving the state forward,” unabashedly using words “like cooperation and collaboration.” She has focused on “practical changes to government that would help Hoosiers.” But now that…

The annual seminar is Dec. 8-9 (attend one or both days). For details and tickets, please click HERE or on the artwork above. Friday — “No Name Tag” We will convene in the Ford Room (new this year) where you still will be able to order food and drinks off the menu. Andrea Neal and Craig Ladwig are putting together a book celebrating the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence. They are inviting the book’s contributors to help lead a…

by Mark Franke A group of friends were talking one afternoon about what we should look for in our elected officials. What characteristics must be displayed in a candidate in order to deserve our votes? It is easy to be cynical given the clown circus on display in Washington D.C. I just succumbed to this cynicism myself with the previous sentence. Such an attitude is not helpful; the crisis must be addressed. My standard operating…

by Leo Morris Imagine no possessionsI wonder if you canNo need for greed or hungerA brotherhood of man  — “Imagine,”1971 I don’t know if John Lennon was self-aware enough to see the irony of a filthy rich superstar longing for a utopia in which everything belongs to everybody, so nobody has to do without anything, the perfect equality within our reach if we just wish for it hard enough. But before he was murdered in…