Zoning: Government for Government’s Sake My favorite public policy that creates more problems than it solves remains recycling. A close second, though, is zoning with its ignoble beginnings as a way to keep Jews off 5th Avenue in New York City. Recycling of course is the art of making millions of dollars convincing environmentally woke households to sort out their trash so it can be sold to China to dump in the ocean. Zoning, or more specifically euclidian…

By Richard McGowan, Ph.D. When I was growing up, only one team sport mattered: baseball. Most boys dreamed of becoming major leaguers. Heck, President Eisenhower was fishing with a friend once and he asked his friend, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” His friend answered, “President.” When his friend asked him, President Eisenhower said, “A major league baseball player.” Of course, neither got his wish, but their exchange captures the importance…

by Leo Morris Several years ago, I finished a nice meal at one of my favorite restaurants and settled up with the waitress, someone new to the place. “Oh, thank you,” she gushed. “Thank you so much!” “For what?” I asked, puzzled at her exuberance. “It’s just a standard 20 percent tip.” “But this is such a 10 percent town,” she replied. Ah, memories. Considering everything that’s been happening lately, if that incident happened today,…

by Tim Timmons Remember Harry Belafonte’s version of the Limbo song, that rich baritone asking how low can you go? And it doesn’t feel like we’re done yet. Consider that Harry is 96 now and I’m guessing might be surprised at the answer to his question. Why? Because today, in this country, we’re proving over and over we can go pretty doggone low. Voting — Most of us grew up with the idea that we would vote on…

by Mark Franke It is Holy Week for Christians, that most profound of weeks, the pivotal point of the Christian liturgical year. This year Christian Holy Week and Jewish Passover coincide, as they do most years. As well they should, since the first Good Friday and Easter occurred at the Passover. This was no coincidence if one reads the Gospels carefully and accepts their theological and historical claims. I am one of those, one who…

by Jason Arp Every 10 years in this country a census has been taken since 1790. This decennial census was created for the purpose of establishing and maintaining congressional districts and has ben used by states, counties and municipalities for their own redistricting needs. From the beginning there were data needs besides simply counting the residents. Since the Constitution originally had partial representation for slaves (three-fifth compromise) they needed to be counted in the census. Over…

Three Questions for the American People As we flailed around trying to fend off the multiple attacks on our traditional America, we realized that those attacks have already been addressed — 26 years ago, long before the fraudulent “1619 Project” or the inanity of Black Lives Matter. I am in the habit of taking from my shelf the late Paul Johnson’s “A History of the American People.” History has a calming effect on me, and the other evening was no…

Evil Party, Stupid Party, Cont’d “We have two parties here, and only two. One is the evil party, and the other is the stupid party. I’m very proud to be a member of the stupid party. — M. Stanton Evans LET THIS SERVE as my roundup of the legislative session: The more Republicans, the more Democrat policies. That’s according to the news service State Affairs which reported this week that the Indiana GOP supermajority allowed twice as many Democrat measures to advance…

by Mark Franke We live in the information age and that is supposed to be a Good Thing. I concede the point, partially. There is a definite benefit in being able to search Wikipedia rather than pull down an outdated Funk & Wagnalls from the shelf whenever I have a quick question I need answered. Still, I do my human best to avoid reading things on the Internet but then I am human after all.…

by Leo Morris In the middle of his most recent offering, the Indiana Policy Review book reviewer Mark Franke asked one of the most important questions of the modern political era. In fact, if our polity is to survive its current state of fractured fragility, it might be the question: “Where is the red line between reasonable compromise and dying on the hill of principle?” I don’t have any better answer to that question than Mark did, but it…