The federal government's delusion optimism knows no limits:
GARY, Ind. - Sen. Evan Bayh says the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has established a "Gary Project" that will try to turn the gritty lakefront city into a national model for urban revitalization.
I neglected to mention an important observance yesterday:
Cost of Government Day (COGD) is the date of the calendar year on which the average American worker has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of the spending and regulatory burden imposed by government at the federal, state and local levels.
Gov. Mitch Daniels sat down with WANE-TV last month and said it should be up to the people of Fort Wayne whether to pursue expanded gambling here. Then he was asked if he would sign off on a referendum for such gambling if it came to his desk during a legislative session, and he said:
Most of us can't afford to advertise ourselves by securing the naming rights for something as big as a sports stadium. But what about something a little more modest? Thanks to the budget troubles of cities like Indianapolis, we may finally have our shot:
Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard's administration is looking into whether selling naming rights and other forms of advertising might help the city make needed infrastructure improvements.
[. . .]
I don't know whether we should be hopeful or worried that, according to The New York Times, Indiana's two senators are "considered fence sitters" on major climate change legislation moving through Congress. The analysis even goes so far as to say that their votes "could be the deciding factors, and obtaining those votes will be challenging."
My brother the software designer was the first one to tell me this truism from the programming world: If you computerize a mess, all you get is a faster mess. That sounds like what happened with Indiana's attempt to outsource its FSSA claims, as described in this spanking of the state in The Wall Street Journal:
Some of us have been afraid that the health care fight forced the Obama administration to use up all the possible name-calling epithets for opponents. But those folks have a really big thesaurus, and they'll make good use of it in the upcoming "immigration reform" debates:
Rep. Baron Hill is another Indiana Democrat who is ducking town hall meetings because of all those mean, nasty constiuents who really want to turn them into, you know, town hall meetings in which there is a boisterous exchange of opinion. Instead, he is having "unannounced meetings," and he is getting some grief for his explanation:
An Indiana congressman who should decide whether he really wants to stay in the kitchen:
EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Indiana Congressman Brad Ellsworth has dropped plans for public meetings in the coming weeks as rowdy health care protests over have disrupted sessions across the country.
Ellsworth says he decided to instead hold small private meetings with constituents to allow people to give him their opinions without being interrupted.
The recent session of the General Assembly wasn't just about bitter partisanship over a new, two-year budget, although it certainly seemed that way at times. Hoosier lawmakers also spent 29 hours of the session -- yes, someone actually added up the time -- on resolutions, those "back-patting measures with no actual impact." Sugar cream pie was named the official state pie. Gary native Michael Jackson was memorialized.
