For immediate release (496 words)“Indiana Government Has Grown so Complex There Are not Enough Reporters or Even Informed Activists to Stay With its Twists and Turns.” Can anybody anymore know what’s going on in the Statehouse? That is not a flippant question. Our constitutional democracy, if that is any longer the right description, increasingly defies understanding. This General Assembly left even the hardest working Statehouse reporters exhausted and scratching their heads. For example: Last week,…

For release noon July 7 and thereafter (669 words) Indiana’s public universities are missing a golden opportunity to help Hoosier students. With the state’s unemployment rate at 10.6 percent and family income at a 35-year low, now is the time to freeze tuition. Instead, the cost of higher education keeps going up. Ivy Tech plans a 4.9 percent tuition increase, about $140 for a full-time student. Indiana State has proposed 3.9 percent or $278. At…

For immediate release (443 words) A friend was invited to what he described as a “quite important” academic seminar this week at an impressive Indianapolis address where some of the smartest minds in the nation were to gather to discuss health-care reform. Our friend declined. That decision disappointed many of his political and academic acquaintances. The friend is a policy analyst, after all, and “quite important” academic seminars are what policy analysts do. Nonetheless, his…

For release July 1 and thereafter (572 words) Congressman Mike Pence’s refusal to earmark federal transportation funds for specific projects related to Ball State University has been criticized, not surprisingly, by many in my university community.  As a BSU faculty member and homeowner near campus, I certainly do appreciate the road improvements that have flowed from the specific earmarks of both Congressman Pence and his predecessor David McIntosh. Yet, as a political economist I see…

For release June 22 and thereafter (661 words) Last week the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) released criteria for applications from Indiana for spending its share of the $8 billion of stimulus money that Congress allocated to high-speed rail. Which raises a question: Would you pay $1,000 so that someone — probably not you — can ride high-speed trains less than 60 miles a year? That’s what the FRA’s high-speed rail plan is going to cost:…

For release June 24 and thereafter (700 words)   Long before it was fashionable to advocate for parkland and civic space, Indiana’s founding fathers wrote the idea into our Constitution. The framers didn’t want future generations selling off prime public land: the Statehouse, Monument Circle or Military Park, in particular. So in Article 15, section 9, they declared those three properties “shall not be sold or leased.”      That language is why Indianapolis activist Clarke…

“If the title is so important to you that it trumps other polite forms of address, you are in politics for the wrong reasons . . .” Dear Senator Boxer . . .For immediate release (255 words)Andrea Neal could not believe Barbara Boxer’s arrogance when she demanded yesterday to be called “senator” during the testimony of Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh. As a teacher of constitutional history, Neal was embarrassed for the senator and her pride…

For release June 17 and thereafter (635 words) The cartoon in the New Yorker shows a well-heeled couple on a busy city street sitting behind a sign. “Save the Hamptons,” it says. Cash-strapped Indiana legislators are in special session this week eyeing the most obvious sources of additional tax revenue. They should know, though, that although the poor will always be with us, not so the rich. The wealthy come and go on the whim…

587 words Gov. Mitch Daniels’ speech apologizing for his generation was quoted in the Wall Street Journal this week. He and others of this year’s commencement honorees described the Baby Boom generation as selfish. But one expert on the cultural impact of the generation, Neil Howe, told the newspaper that the apologies sounded like a ploy rather than a mea culpa: “You think about what an apology does, it allows you to maintain the moral…

For release noon June 10 and thereafter (655 words)Note: Graf 4 refers to start of special session Thursday. If they couldn’t agree on spending priorities in the regular session, it’s hard to imagine state legislators coming together to pass a budget by June 30, the end of the fiscal year — especially considering the histrionics we’ve seen from House Democrats. Their latest stunt was to walk out of bipartisan subcommittee hearings because they didn’t like the…