Downtown Indianapolis was recently ranked No. 1 for livability among smaller cities by Livability.com—gratifying praise after $9.3 billion of reinvestment. Recent debates and plans, however, have raised a fundamental question: Whose downtown is this?
Mayor Ballard proposes to create a judicial center that would bring the dispersed offices of the criminal courts, prosecutor, public defender and perhaps other agencies together with the county jail in one facility at a location to be determined, and free up the jail site for development.
What “D” word is used most sparingly or avoided altogether by Hoosier political, business and civic leaders when sharing how to position Indiana for growth and success? a) debt, b) deflation, or c) diversity?
I read recently that a proposed statue of a goat-headed figure of Satan, known as Baphomet, is a bad idea on the grounds of Oklahoma’s Capitol.
I’ve been listing to the Swan Silverstones. “Don’t blame it on the children,” this gospel group sings, which got me thinking about who’s to blame for the failure to regulate all our state’s child care facilities.
Free-market economists are skeptical of government programs designed to promote economic development.
I don’t think anyone can disagree we need a strategy for making the slogan “Indiana Works” a reality.
Compared with neighboring states, Indiana is doing well. For that, Hoosiers can be thankful.
Dwayne Sawyer just set a new world record for quickest rise and fall of an Indiana statewide elected official. His tenure as auditor fell just short of four months.
Each session, I work to find efficient and effective ways to streamline government functions. Bolstering our city’s infrastructure is vital for sustained economic growth.
After reviewing the facts surrounding a proposed expansion of mass-transit services in central Indiana, gathering input from local officials, meeting with the public, and listening to concerns about establishing an expanded transit system, legislators are working to develop a plan that is both efficient and cost-effective.
Folks in the business of passing laws and enforcing them must, of necessity, impose somebody’s idea of what is good on the rest of us.
I’ve written a fair bit in these pages about the pitfalls of official secrecy—the often unjustified withholding of information by public agencies at all levels of government.
It would be easy to miss the significance of the seven Indiana House Republicans all supporting the 2013 budget deal.
Spend any time around monetary officials and one word you’ll hear a lot is “normalization.” Most such officials accept that now is no time to be tightfisted, that for the time being credit must be easy and interest rates low.
In an interview with the BBC last month, Oprah Winfrey said of President Obama: “There is a level of disrespect for the office that occurs. And that occurs, in some cases, and maybe even many cases, because he’s African-American.”
We’re about to leave one unique facet of Indiana politics and enter another.
Everybody’s talking about Obamacare. Website crashes. People booted off their health insurance. Sticker shock. No doubt we’ll be talking about it through the 2014 election. And the 2016 election. And most likely well beyond that.
The failed rollout of the Obamacare health care exchanges is seen by many as a political gift to the Republican Party. There is no question that President Obama’s administration failed to execute a controversial law that has been heavily criticized, litigated in courts and elections, and created great unrest among the American people.
Former Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard and other veterans of the highest state courts in the country issued a warning a few days ago about the dangers of large-scale campaign spending in judicial campaigns.
