Will Rogers once said, “Congress is in session; hold onto your wallets.” Now, with the General Assembly in session, and with Rogers’ spirit of affectionate cynicism, I offer a corollary: “Hold onto your open government.
No more than an hour had passed on that awful day at Sandy Hook Elementary School before the usual suspects began their mantra: The whole thing was because of the gun.
A word I like to introduce my students to is “intractable.” This is a fancy, 75-cent college word that means can’t be solved, can only be dealt with—as in, the problems of homelessness are intractable.
Everyone knows you are not supposed to discuss taboo subjects such as religion and politics in the workplace.
Americans in general and Hoosiers in particular like to see the economy as a morality play. If you are rich, it is because you are hard-working and clever. If you are poor, it is because you are lazy and stupid.
Daily, I see politicians arguing, reciting their talking points, without facts. I hear political pundits repeating those talking points, urging on the political rhetoric.
It’s hard to tell when the notion began to sink in that too many Americans have forgotten the point of the American Revolution.
I had a happy Valentine’s Day visiting with members of the General Assembly.
Gov. Mike Pence doesn’t just want a tax cut for Hoosiers. A tax cut was foundational to his campaign and his philosophy of conservatism: Growth comes faster when individuals and corporations spend their own money, because it is more productive (leveraged better), more diversely spread (less likely to be bet on winners and losers), and more reflective of actual markets.
Do the politicians care what nonvoters think? House Speaker Brian Bosma recently took issue with the WISH-TV/Ball State Hoosier Survey because, he said, it wasn’t a voter poll. When challenged, he said that he cares what everybody thinks, but the message he delivered was that the opinions of voters matter more than those of adults who don’t get to the polls.
Something important is missing on planning desks of Indianapolis leaders as they contemplate mass transit, waterworks and other big-ticket projects. It is well past time for a strategy for a new criminal justice complex outside of downtown.
Arguably one of the most passionate and polarizing debates in the General Assembly this session is the allocation of the transportation budget. Gov. Mike Pence and many legislators agree that money should be spent on repairing deteriorating roads and constructing new highways.
Most days I wish the government would take less of my money and let me use it to save, invest, donate or just spend frivolously. I figure I earned this money, it’s mine and I deserve to keep it, right?
Promising to cut taxes is not political leadership. It’s cheap and easy.
In just more than eight years, Indiana has become a national role model for economic development as other states have enacted similar business-friendly policies, practiced fiscal discipline, and replicated the IEDC organizational structure. Our state’s emergence as an economic development leader is no accident, as the General Assembly partnered with us throughout this time to build this job-attracting machine.
Recently, Gov. Mike Pence announced his plan to launch a new “transparency portal” to allow open tracking of the Indiana Economic Development Corp.’s tax credits and the jobs created by those incentives. For some time, I have had my own concerns about how much return taxpayers are getting for their public investment in Indiana’s economy.
There is no question that liberals do an impressive job of expressing concern for blacks. But do the intentions expressed in their words match the actual consequences of their deeds?
One of the features of the Obama years is that we get to witness an enormous race between meritocracy and government. On the one side, meritocracy widens inequality. On the other side, there is President Barack Obama’s team of progressives, who are trying to mitigate inequality. The big question is: Which side is winning?
When it comes to President Barack Obama and Hoosiers, well, it’s complicated.
Several recent zoning battles have revealed an opposition to change in many Indy neighborhoods that could sabotage the changes that are necessary if Indianapolis is to compete with other metro areas and even its own suburbs in coming decades.
