In the days leading up to the election, there are countless opportunities to learn about the candidates who are running for elected office. With Election Day just weeks away, chances are you are getting bombarded by campaign paraphernalia in the mailbox, on television and radio, the Internet and in your neighbor’s front yard.
Last summer, when the conservative Americans for Prosperity dumped $700,000 into Indiana on a TV ad attacking Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Joe Donnelly, I posted a story on the Howey Politics Indiana website talking about how the Super PAC was running the ad “on behalf” of Republican Senate nominee Richard Mourdock.
Mike’s goal No. 6 is to develop a plan to improve the health, safety and well-being of Hoosier families, especially children.
The state could direct $10 million to reducing childhood poverty and require that “family impact statements” be devised as to proposed regulations. The result would be that poverty would be alleviated by the $10 million minus the cost of the impact statements and the cost of the inevitable litigation about them.
The most critical issue for District 7 residents is the economy. We need to redouble our efforts to create an environment for greater job growth. Mayor Ballard has done an excellent job of attracting investment domestically and by building partnerships throughout the world in this global economy. However, he needs a stronger partner in Washington.
As a nation, we remain in the middle of a long and arduous economic recovery, so it should be no surprise that the most important issue facing the 7th District is how we continue to grow our economy. We must continue moving forward. I am committed to doing everything I can to put Hoosiers back to work.
I stopped into a local discount store on a stormy night this month and purchased items totaling less than $40. Lightning had struck the store and registers were not working. The manager gave clerks calculators and instructed them on how to track purchases.
In Indiana and other states, we face a sobering reality: Far too few students are prepared for college-level coursework.
Indianapolis Public Schools and the community centers and ministries of the near-east side came together to apply for a Promise Neighborhood grant—committing to organize supports for students and families around schools in order to significantly improve the educational and developmental outcomes of all children.
Paul Ryan has not sauteed in foreign policy in his years on Capitol Hill. The 42-year-old congressman is no Middle East savant; till now, his idea of a border dispute has more likely involved Wisconsin and Illinois.
Water is a valuable commodity. Wars have been fought over water rights. This summer’s drought certainly made people here in Indiana become water conscious. Geist and Morse reservoirs were both being tested before we finally got relief.
Most would probably agree that a stereotypical picture of homelessness exists. Many think of people dealing with alcohol or drug-dependency issues, dangerous deadbeats and the mentally ill. These stereotypes lead to misconceptions, whereby people don’t feel responsibility toward helping address and end this sad and unnecessary issue.
You may have seen recent news reports discussing a Ball State University study of how the total tax burden in this state varies for different industries and forms of organization. The takeaway is that there are multiple “inequities” in Indiana’s tax structure.
Richard Lugar is leaving the Senate, yet the Republican who lost the May primary election to Richard Mourdock still intends to continue some of the work that defined his life as a lawmaker. Lugar spelled out his plans for the first time in a recent speech to the Contemporary Club of Indianapolis at a dinner staged to honor his more than four decades of service as school board member, mayor and six-term U.S. senator.
Joe Donnelly needs a lesson in economics. Donnelly’s campaign advertisements say he’s “about jobs and balanced budgets,” but throughout Donnelly’s time in Congress, the public debt has increased $7.3 billion and every American citizen’s individual share of the debt is now $51,823. He voted to increase the debt ceiling five times. In Donnelly’s last two terms alone, net private-sector jobs have decreased a half million.
The trick that is easy to play on the average person is to imply that Washington is like your experience in most life situations in a business, church or even city or state government, which tends to be solution-oriented as opposed to establishing the ideological framework and laws for all private business and increasingly all governmental standards.
On Nov. 6, all eyes will be on several battleground states. Unfortunately, the pundits will miss one of the most important states that will contribute to an Obama victory—Indiana. While some will debate whether the president will win Indiana (I still contend that he can), keep in mind that several Indiana-related items will play a role in the fall campaign and will have an impact in other parts of the country.
In the decade of the Great Depression, the 1930s, the population of Indiana grew 5.8 percent. Later, in the 1970s, a decade of great economic turmoil, the state’s population advanced 5.7 percent. The 1980s saw a strong recession and a subsequent restructuring of American business; Indiana’s population grew a mere 1 percent.
The outgoing Daniels administration takes great pride in its fiscal probity and not without justification—the state’s budget is in surplus, its credit rating is better than the U.S. governments’, and business taxes have been reduced.
While it is easy to see the effect of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizens United case, since corporate-sponsored political ads have dominated our airwaves for months, it is much more difficult for voters to determine exactly who is paying for these ads.
