by Andrea Neal In an era of declining church membership for most Christian denominations, one group of believers is experiencing healthy, unprecedented growth. In 2014, the estimated Amish population in Indiana exceeded 50,000, according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. That’s bigger than the cities of Columbus, Jeffersonville or Kokomo, and more than double the Amish population of 15 years ago. “They are growing. It would be fair to…

THE FOUNDATION asked John Kessler, who teaches economics at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, to design a chart that would help the membership determine whether a public expenditure before their city council was economically sound. No, that’s not exactly true. Our impetus came from a couple of decades of frustration listening to self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives slipping and sliding on this vote or that, telling us it all was too complicated to explain, that we didn’t understand…

by Craig Ladwig This being both football and election season, a gridiron analogy for the Indiana GOP seems apt. It has long been said that Republicans here play politics “between the 40-yard lines” — these days, “stopped dead at midfield” is more like it. Rare is the Indiana Republican willing to articulate the difference between public-sector and private-sector collective bargaining, a difference that both accounts for the mediocrity of education and threatens to bankrupt our…

By Ryan Cummins My experience on a city council, in business and as a taxpayer tells me to beware when the government action being proposed is “for public safety,” “for the children” or “for economic development.” When you hear those words, grab your wallet and hold close your liberty; there is a hidden agenda. Another dependable “tell” that your elected representative is gambling with your future is when, in the midst of a budgetary crisis,…

It is good every once in a while to push personalities and ideology out of the way and look at public policy in its purist form. It is bad for the blood pressure to always be imagining little Stalins, Trotskys and Obamas lurking in the back desks of the county planning department (although history tells us they surely are there). So the work of a favorite analyst, Chris Edwards, is always welcome here. He has…

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. The authors are solely responsible for the content of their research and analysis. Revisiting TIF: It’s Not Working the Way We Were Told It Would The author, an adjunct…

by Andrea Neal It was Indiana’s version of the Gold Rush. In the 1880s, the discovery of a massive natural-gas field in east central Indiana launched a gas boom of historic proportion. The news spread fast — as it did with California gold — and folks poured into Indiana in search of fortune. “There was so much gas here people thought it would last forever,” says Jerry Long, president of the Gas City Historical Society,…

by Craig Ladwig Forgive skeptics of the tableau vivant unfolding for Regional Cities initiatives across the state. They seem dumbstruck. They don’t have the data to challenge the expansive vision and supporting PowerPoints of economic-development directors and their armies of experts. That does not mean, though, that they don’t have a vision of their own. In my city, the economic-development group has documented its vision in a 200-page Regional Cities grant proposal. It is a…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. Did you know there is an Indiana Daffodil Society? I don’t know much about daffodils except they come up after the crocuses and before the tulips and irises. Nor do I desire to acquire detailed knowledge about a flower that shows its face for 20 days a year. However, I think it is great that there are people in Indiana who do. A quick view of the organization’s website indicates it…

Dear Editor: There are those of us still around who grew up in newsrooms where the model city editor was Jack Webb playing Sam Gatlin in the 1956 film “-30-.” We are limited in what we can add to the debate over your behind-the-back campaign to reorder Hoosier views on sexual orientation and gender. Nonetheless, no reader of your newspaper can be surprised by your recent actions. Advocacy is what corporate editors do these days, in…