(For the use of the membership only, not for publication, distribution, quotation or reproduction.) “Our parents don’t know how to use a ******* democracy, so we have to.” — David Hogg, 18, an organizer of the “March for Our Lives” protests. YOUNG PEOPLE ARE ASSUMED to have magical qualities. They are the future, it is said incessantly. The question, though, is whether it is a future they will want once they get there. Some of us…

For the use of the membership only. COMPLAINING ABOUT what a newspaper doesn’t print is like complaining about a shoe store that doesn’t carry your size. But not exactly. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution sets newspapers above other businesses, extends privileges that would land the owner of a shoe store in jail. In exchange, it is assumed that the newspaper will print what it considers the truth. Please know that these privileges are…

 by Leo Morris I am a heartless monster who doesn’t care that our children are being slaughtered in their schools. I am an inhuman fiend indifferent to the plight of future generations who will inherit the ravaged planet we will leave them. I will be saddened but not terribly surprised if that is a common reaction to this column. I write in defense of freedom and so must be prepared for the predictable pushback from…

by Craig Ladwig A prominent Indiana Republican stopped by a few days before this session ended to deliver a self-aggrandizing lecture on the difference between holding office and merely “spouting philosophy.” There was a day that some of us here would have conceded the point. Today is not that day. A Republican supermajority made a mess of the General Assembly, and a philosophy-free leadership is to blame. The Statehouse burned this week while people skilled…

by Fred McCarthy We found it interesting that the local Chamber of Commerce, which in theory represents the business community, has volunteered to help a governmental agency more easily increase the tax burden on the business community. It comes as no surprise for in recent years we do not recall the Chamber ever questioning tax increases, or, at least as importantly, asking for a review of current factors which might negate the need for increasing…

by Jason Arp In 2003, Capitol Broadcasting in concert with the city of Durham, North Carolina, put forth an effort to reinvigorate downtown Durham by redeveloping the American Tobacco Company properties there into apartments, retail space and offices. The project, costing far more than its real market value, reportedly ended in bankruptcy. Now we learn there are troubling similarities with a project proposed for Indiana. The  $260-million North Carolina project had roughly 1 million square…

 by Mark Franke Every English school child knows the story about King Canute sitting on the seashore and commanding the tide to stop before wetting his feet. Needless to say, it didn’t, which was the point old Canute wanted to make. He may have been king, but the laws of nature answer only to God. Apocryphal or not, there is something to be learned from this. But not by the political and business leaders who…

by Leo Morris Those who worry about Indiana’s image in more enlightened sections of the country can relax a little now that one black mark on the state’s reputation has been erased: It is no longer one of only four states that do not have an official insect. Hoosier entomologists will no longer have to hang their heads in shame when they go to national conferences. And the even better news is that new state laws don’t…

by Mark Franke When I was a college freshman taking my first political theory class, my professor explained why some government policies are good (meaning popular) and others are scorned. The answer is simple: It depends on whose ox is being gored. Tariffs are exactly that kind of policy. In a free-trade environment struggling domestic industries being undercut in price or otherwise losing market share to foreign imports see their oxen getting readied for the…

by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. Larry Kudlow and Brian Domitrovic (KB) have written JFK and the Reagan Revolution — a helpful history on their dramatic “supply-side” reductions in marginal tax rates. Bringing JFK into this discussion is particularly helpful in dealing with partisans (dramatic tax cuts have not simply been a GOP thing), folks who are focused on income inequality (given the policy’s supposed contributions to income inequality and inequity), and statist ideologues (who prefer higher…