I remember Carl Moldthan from my days in the Hudnut Administration, when you could depend upon his Taxpayer Association to challenge virtually every bond issue. Currently, he is Executive Director of TAG–an acronym for Taxpayers for Accountability in Government. On its website, the organization says it works for Indiana taxpayers by monitoring government throughout the state and exposing inefficiency and waste.
Continue reading “Questions for Carl”
Author Archives: Sheila
Style, Substance & Campaigns for Office
Last week, gubernatorial candidate Mitch Daniels unveiled his economic plan. What caught my eye, however, was not the plan itself, but the final sentence in the press announcement. After promising to populate the government with "new ideas and new people," Mitch reportedly concluded with the following sentence: "The what is not as important as the who." In other words, good people are more important than good programs or ideas.
Continue reading “Style, Substance & Campaigns for Office”
Follow the Money
In today’s political environment, a smart politician quickly learns that using the right language is more important than doing the right thing. In most cases, the electorate won’t know the difference, because the real business of government is done through that most boring, least-understood, least reported-on mechanism—the budget. If we really want to know what is going on, we have to follow the money.
What Do We Owe Our Children?
It is not an exaggeration to suggest that the measure of a society can be taken by looking at the policies that affect its children and youth. How children are nurtured and socialized reveals more about a society?s priorities and values than all of its public pronouncements or civic rhetoric.
Continue reading “What Do We Owe Our Children?”
Dark Ages
In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argued that free expression is necessary in order to find truth; that only by contending with the strongest position of one’s opponent can we perfect our own argument. The method of the counter-Enlightenment neo-cons, on the other hand, is to prevent the opposition from speaking at all.
Continue reading “Dark Ages”