For immediate release (587 words) Here is an exercise in junior-high math. It takes 100 workers 100 days to make a locomotive. The workers are paid $100 per day. What are the labor costs of the locomotive? Answer:  $1 million. Here is a more advanced problem. Suppose another set of workers are paid $200 a day. Construct a story where it is actually cheaper to use the high-wage workers to make the locomotive. Easy. If…

For immediate release (678 words with optional cuts) “The truth? You can’t handle the truth.” — Jack Nicholson as Marine Col. Nathan Jessup on the witness stand in “A Few Good Men.” Perhaps politicians believe we can’t “handle the truth” about the costs of building and public works projects. They rarely put all the facts and figures on the table from the start. We are forced into the role of cynics, negativists and obstructionists, suspecting…

We have been looking for something on the front page of our morning newspaper. It is a headline, a story, that is journalism’s equivalent of the archaeology’s “Cambrian explosion” — a point of view that accounts for all points of view. We have dug deep but have come up empty even though our search has expanded to the newspaper’s web pages. It has become a game played with increasing seriousness over our morning cup of…

For release Jan. 18 and thereafter (670 words) Purdue University’s decision to convert to a year-round trimester system is good for students, good for parents and long-run will be good for taxpayers. The only downside is that it may take 10 years to fully implement. Other state universities should take note. Few taxpayer resources are wasted as egregiously as university campuses in summer. It makes no sense to idle dormitories, classrooms and laboratories when there’s…

State Rep. Jeff Espich Chairman, Appropriations Committee The Indiana Statehouse Dear Chairman Espich: Ellen DeGeneres had a funny bit ready for her acceptance speech at last night’s People’s Choice Awards. She read from a list of “peoples” that she expressly wanted to “un-thank” — a nasty letter-writer from Topeka, Kan., a fourth-grade detractor on her school bus (“you know who you are”). It is time to apply this perverse thinking to your House committee, Representative…

For immediate release (659 words). Goldberg, Rube (1883–1970) U.S. cartoonist; creator of the comic strip character Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts (an inventor of complex mechanical devices to achieve simple tasks). It wasn’t mentioned in his State of the State message, but Gov. Daniels will leave for his successor a frustratingly complex and under-performing pension-management system. That is so even though at first glance the contents of the 2011 annual reports issued by the Indiana Public…

For immediate release (792 words) As want-to-be hippies of the Baby Boom now leaning toward a classical liberal persuasion, my generation has its weak moments. There are times we look to government for an answer. On hurried grocery trips, for instance, I have found useful the federally mandated “total carbohydrates” line item on food labels. And watching college bowl games, it has occurred to me that inanity alone justifies imprisoning those who interview coaches or…

“Hoosiers might never see an automatic taxpayer refund that is unexpectedly near its trigger under a bill filed by the Senate’s fiscal leader (Republican Luke Kenley).” — Jan. 6, 2012, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette I fight it, but more and more I think of my public officials, elected or not, as mandarins. The comparison has become disturbingly apt. They simply don’t behave in ways that bring to mind the brave men and women who founded…

For immediate release (579 words) As the 2012 Indiana Legislative Assembly convenes, January will represent a tipping point for all Hoosiers’ individual freedoms as politicians and big-labor bosses draw battle lines to determine if Indiana will become the 23rd right-to-work state. Common sense should make the outcome of such a battle obvious, as right-to-work ensures that every employee has freedom of choice against compulsory unionism and the right to one’s own property — his or…