(Not for publication; for the use of the membership only.) A FEW DAYS AGO the top story on the front page of our morning newspaper was not the threat of a North Korean nuclear attack or the chaos in Washington. It wasn’t even the impact of increased state taxes on a dwindling middle class. No, it was that a black justice on the Indiana Supreme Court is retiring and it appears that his seat will not be filled by…

“Life, liberty and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws.” — Frederic Bastiat by Craig Ladwig Watching last night’s meeting of our city council, the fellow in the next chair leaned over to ask, “Do you think they know about private property?” That was not apparent even on the Republican side of the…

“We are not fake news. We are not failing news organizations. And we are not the enemy of the American people.” — Jeff Mason, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association by Craig Ladwig It is a question that has dogged some of us for years: If it is a good thing to break up Wall Street banks, regional hospitals, monopolies and such, why are we supposed to think it is a bad thing to break…

by Cmdr. John Pickerill All the prosperity we enjoy today we owe to capitalism. For decades progressivists have attempted to challenge this notion. One of the most notable was Phil Donahue in his 1979 interview with Milton Friedman, the 1976 Nobel Prize winner in Economics. Donahue posed this question to Friedman: “When you see around the globe the mal-distribution of wealth, the desperate plight of millions of people in underdeveloped countries, when you see so few ‘haves’…

I SUPPORTED the legislature enacting a multi-year program for constructing and maintaining our roadways and bridges, public infrastructure which is necessary to economic growth and public convenience. So far, no big deal, but unlike my friends at Indiana Policy Review, I also supported raising the revenue to pay for these improvements through rational and measured tax increases. I can nitpick the mix and relative balance of the various “revenue raisers” the governor and the legislature…

We learned this legislative session that somewhere in his political career the governor confused fiscal policy with economic policy. Let us hope that our children and grandchildren will not have to pay for the mix-up by having to go elsewhere to find a decent job. Fiscal policy is the use of government revenue collection (mainly taxes) and expenditure (spending) to influence the economy. Please note the emphasis; it influences the economy, not becomes the economy.…

EACH YEAR the suits in the window offices of the corporate media think up socially aggrandizing projects to justify annual bonuses. It is a gruesome ordeal for all involved. The reporters take the brunt of it. They are sent on bizarre assignments, the points of which are known only to the senior editors who wrote up the formal bonus paperwork and are depending on a good outcome to pay for their swimming pools. And there is the hapless readership,…

by Fred McCarthy One hundred sixty million dollars — that’s how much the Capital Improvement Board (CIB) three years ago agreed to hand the Pacers basketball team over a period of 10 years, supposedly for operation and maintenance of the field house. There are still seven years to go on that bounty. Just last year, the CIB approved the use of $2.8 million of that annual gift for converting parts of the field house to…

by Craig Ladwig In public policy, progressives don’t progress. They stick closely to the revelations of late-night bull sessions in the honors dorm — sophomoric dreams of leveling outcomes, commanding economic development and spreading beauty and light everywhere. The media culture gives us a window into this world through its selection of headlines and guest columns. Telltale signs are the use of modal verbs (“must,” “shall,” etc.) and the confusing of cause and effect. For example, a recent column in the Fort…

by Cmdr. John Pickerill After the next census in 2020 the Indiana General Assembly will once again take on the task of redrawing the state’s election districts. Because Republicans hold a super-majority in both the House and Senate in Indianapolis, there is concern they’ll game the system and draw the lines to defend their super-majority at the expense of everyone else. Some have even called for creating a non-partisan “redistricting commission” to draw the lines…