Trash Incompetence AN EARLY STEVE MARTIN skit advised his audience on how to avoid paying taxes on a million dollars. “First, get a million dollars. But what do you say when the tax man asks why you didn’t pay your taxes? Two simple words, two simple words in the English language, ‘I forgot.’” That’s how government handles mistakes. It “forgets” what went wrong and continues as if nothing happened. Here is an example from — where better? — Washington, D.C.…

by Mark Franke My 70 years on this mortal coil have seen changes unimaginable, to be sure. Cell phones, self-driving cars, video conferencing, countless TV channels, etc. This was the stuff of the Jetsons cartoons. Even the robotic maid Rosey is no longer futuristic. Yet I have nothing on my maternal grandmother, who was born in 1890 and lived to be 105. The technological changes she experienced were even more fundamental to everyday life. Imagine…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D US News reported that Cal State University no longer requires the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). That is so the school system can “bolster the momentum building in the higher education community to drop the testing requirement as schools make more concerted efforts to diversify their campuses.”  Following this “momentum,” Indiana schools, public and private, also offer on a temporary basis “test optional” admission protocols, including Butler University, IU, Purdue and all their branch campuses, Notre Dame, Valparaiso, Franklin and…

by Tom Heller Michael Leppert, a columnist and lecturer at Indiana University, recently shed light on the $5 billion in taxes already paid and collected that the state of Indiana has amassed in a budget reserve fund. That is money now bubbling over 12.5 percent of general-fund spending levels and triggering an automatic refund to state taxpayers. Leppert argues that the state should not be in the business of stuffing a piggy bank with our…

by Leo Morris A presidential candidate promises to put a woman on the Supreme Court. Some idealists say it is identity politics at its worst. But pragmatists know it is a naked political strategy, meant to address weakness in a certain segment of the constituency. Ha, ha, got you. I’m talking not about Joe Biden’s pledge that will result in the court’s first black female justice and get him back in the good graces of…

‘WHEN THE RENT isn’t paid, there’s trouble,” is a line from a Hemingway novel I remember for some reason. Perhaps it is because paying the rent is where the rubber meets the road in our economic system — an ugly absolute unlike the softer irritants of inflation, interest rates, Internet fees, etc. As such, it is the bane of those who imagine they can change the world with a sweep of the legislative hand. That was the story of…

by Mark Franke What a disappointment. I hardly expected Joe Biden suddenly to become a classical liberal dedicated to recognizing natural rights and advancing individual liberty. I did hope, Pollyanna like, that he actually meant what he said in his inaugural address: “Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this: Bringing America together. Uniting our people. And uniting our nation.” He differentiated himself during the primaries as a more reasonable version of…

“You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.” — Ayn Rand Running Hospitals by Decree THE STATEHOUSE LEADERSHIP has written a letter — sternly worded, mind you —warning Indiana’s health providers, among the most powerful lobbies, that if they don’t lower hospital and medical costs  . . . well, something will happen. Senate President Rodric Bray and Speaker of the House Todd Huston told 20 healthcare executive to work together to match Indiana’s health care…

by Leo Morris A criminal whose guilt is obvious gets off on a technicality, and the great debate begins. You’ve undoubtedly heard it, in real life on the news or in detective fiction in print or on the screen. Lock the criminal away despite the technicality, says one side. It’s a perversion of justice to let the guilty escape punishment just because police didn’t dot every “i” and cross every “t” in pursuit of, say,…

by Jason Arp When I was a kid in the late 1970s, we had one telephone in our house. It was a drab green color and had a very long chord to allot the user some freedom to roam into the living room or dining room if they were adventurous. We could only talk to grandparents a state away for just a few seconds because the call was so expensive for a blue-collar family. Our aunt in Montana got to…