Oops, Budgets Require Priorities HERE’S HOW my city is going to meet the challenges of taxpayer-friendly changes in how property taxes are applied: It’s going to pretend nothing happened.  The Legislature has reformed the state’s property tax system to provide relief for homeowners and businesses through phased increases in homestead deductions, new tax credits and expanded business personal property tax exemptions. In other words, city councils are going to have less money to  play around with. In…

Millions Gather To Express Total Ignorance About Political System Regarding this weekend’s “No Kings” marches, we cannot do better than the satirical Babylon Bee: “Millions of Americans took to the streets today in order to express to the world their total and absolute ignorance about the political system they live in. “Several major cities including Boston, New York City and Chicago saw over one hundred thousand residents show up to proclaim their abject incomprehension of…

The Indiana Daily Student, RIP? “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . .” — First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution THE FIRST AMENDMENT is written as clearly as humanly possible. That won’t matter, of course, to those who see earnest but callow Indiana University journalism students as a bulwark of democracy. Last week, you could hear the wailing…

The End of Race Grifting MASS MEDIA REGULARLY finds itself on the wrong side of public opinion. Readership, please know, is approaching statistical irrelevance. It is understandable then that corporate outfits such as Indianapolis’s Capital Chronicle are leaning heavily on contrived polling to support their points of view. What, for example, do Hoosiers think about redistricting? Without context, it is a question unsuitable for standard opinion sampling. It pertains to that part of democracy most resembling sausage-making. Nobody wants to…

War of the Worlds II A LEARNED PROFESSOR of my acquaintance argues that we have become an “unserious” people. I not been sure how to test his theory — COVID, AOC and the Obama Library being indicative but not decisive. That was until the arrival of 31/ATLAS.  I am referring of course to an interstellar object, possibly a comet, possibly an alien craft, that our advanced astronomical equipment first noticed in July and will come near the…

The House of Bayh WITH BEAU BAYH crossing three state lines to begin his ancestral run for high office here, what better time to reconstitute Indiana as a sovereign kingdom?  The state already owes fealty to the Bayh family, this being the third generation of their civic reign. No, none has been particularly distinguished but achievement is not the justification of monarchy; it is adaptability in the interest of stability. The Bayhs, a family without discernible principle, are a perfect fit. Beau, for example,…

by JASON ARP Nearly 10  years ago, I published an article in The Indiana Policy Review(Backgrounder: Regional Cities Plans, Jan. 1, 2016) describing some of the issues related to the State of Indiana’s plan to institute a Regional Development Authority (RDA) to fund what were deemed to be multi-county economic development projects. The concerns expressed in that article focused upon the massive increase in government-funded economic development activity that would be incentivized by state injections of capital.  The RDA…

The foundation’s white papers are intended to make scholarly research on Indiana issues more widely available to policy analysts and researchers. White Papers represent research in progress and are published to invite comment and discussion as preparation for their submission to academic journals and other professional publications. The authors are solely responsible for the content of their research and analysis. —————————————————– How Indiana Can Build Data Centers Without Raising Household Electricity Costs? “This so-called ‘Zero…

by MARK FRANKE Saudi Arabia is a complex nation, containing a whole bunch of conquered Bedouin tribes content to live off the largess of the ruling house of al-Saud. Most of the nation’s workforce, which is limited by a general lack of work ethic among the aforesaid recipients of governmental transfer payments, is employed by the government and under rather relaxed work standards. What happens to this flow of benefits when the flow of oil…

Count Me Uncivilized “A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.” — James Madison THE FIRST ANNUAL Project Civility Summit has adjourned to much hope and acclaim in our lovely, homogenous Carmel. In addition to the “leadership training” that such summitry always presumes to provide, one of the more creative ideas was something called “porching,” a grassroots movement encouraging community…