Recent editorials published in Indiana newspapers
The Indianapolis Star. April 22, 2016
A rare opportunity for Indiana on national stage.
Voters in Indiana will have a rare opportunity on May 3.
In most presidential election cycles, Indiana's late-in-the-game primary is an afterthought. Both major parties have all but settled on their nominees by the time the first Tuesday in May arrives.
But not this year. This time, Indiana matters - a lot.
"(Indiana) ultimately will decide whether Ted Cruz or Donald Trump is the nominee," David McIntosh, a former 2nd District member of Congress and former candidate for governor, said Thursday.
McIntosh now leads the Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy organization that has endorsed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. But it's not just Cruz supporters who say that Indiana will play an outsized role.
"Where did Trump go after his big New York win? He went to Indiana," Larry Sabato, a well-regarded political analyst and University of Virginia professor, said Wednesday on Fox News. "He knows he needs to win it or come close to winning it."
Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are in a race to deny front-runner Donald Trump enough delegates to clinch the nomination ahead of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. The conventional wisdom is that if the nomination process goes to a second ballot, then the path to head the Republican ticket will be wide open.
And Indiana, with 57 delegates at stake and no clear favorite to win on May 3, is in a prime spot to play an outsized role in selecting the eventual nominee.
So the stakes are high for Republicans, but what about Democratic and independent voters?
Hillary Clinton will almost certainly emerge as the Democratic nominee, no matter what happens here on May 3. But Bernie Sanders is still running a high-profile campaign and has attracted a loyal core of supporters, many of whom are eager to cast ballots in favor of a candidate who's championed greater economic equality.
Even voters who are not affiliated with either major party have good reason to tune in. You do not have to be registered as a Democrat or Republican to vote in the party primaries. If you already have registered (that deadline has passed), you can show up, produce a photo ID, and request either a Democratic or Republican primary ballot. And you can do on that on May 3 even if you plan to vote for the Green Party in November.
Although the presidential campaigns have dominated political conversations in recent months, a number of other key races will be determined on Primary Election Day. U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman and U.S. Rep. Todd Young are locked in a tough competition to replace retiring Sen. Dan Coats. The winner likely will face former Democratic congressman Baron Hill in November.
Longtime state Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, faces a potentially strong challenge from Hamilton County businessman Scott Willis. And voters in the 9th Congressional District, which includes Johnson County, will select a Republican nominee for the U.S. House from among five candidates, including the current Indiana attorney general and two state senators. The primary winner will be a strong favorite in November given the political makeup of the district.
The opportunity for voters to make their voices heard in a primary rarely has been greater in Indiana. But with that opportunity comes the responsibility to listen, to learn and to participate.
Our votes will matter, a great deal, for both the nation and the state. But only if we as citizens and taxpayers, and as Hoosiers, show up to take a stand on May 3.
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Kokomo Tribune. April 21, 2016
Schools push healthy food.
When the U.S. Department of Agriculture handed down stricter standards for school lunches, many feared kids would resist the change, that they might turn up their noses at the healthier food choices and instead come to school with sugary treats and potato chips.
The new standards took effect when students started classes the previous school year. And sadly, there was some of that. Our story about school-lunch changes in the Maconaquah district received several negative comments from readers.
One woman said on our Facebook page, "they wonder why kids are not cooperating in the class room DUH they are hungry."
Our hope is such opinions have begun to change. As word spreads these healthier choices actually taste good, we hope more youngsters will give them a try.
Clearly, the United States has a weight problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one-third of U.S. adults are considered obese.
The latest statistics indicate that almost two-thirds of Hoosier adults age 18 and over were overweight, with a body mass index of 25 or greater. More than 32 percent were obese.
The problem starts at a young age. Nearly 16 percent of Indiana's adolescents in grades 9 through 12 were overweight, and 12.8 percent were obese. The numbers were even higher for the state's preschoolers ages 2 to 5.
Weight-related health issues include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer. In 2008, medical costs associated with obesity were estimated at $147 billion; the medical costs for people who are obese were $1,429 higher than the costs for individuals of normal weight.
Most of us need to take a closer look at our diets. We need to develop some healthier habits. We need fewer soft drinks or more juice or milk or even water. We need less grease and more greens.
And what better place to form those habits than in our public schools?
The Department of Agriculture should be applauded for the steps it has taken to make school lunches healthier, and it's incumbent upon parents to back up the message nutritionists are trying to send.
As you shop for lunches this week to send with your children to school, resist the temptation to fill that bag with junk food and encourage your children instead to pick up some of those fruits and vegetables they'll find in the school lunch line.
Your kids might complain at first, but they'll thank you in the long run.
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The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette. April 19, 2016
Student loan fraud case is a cautionary tale.
When Congress created a federal student assistance program unduly influenced by the for-profit college lobby, it turned students into unwitting targets for unscrupulous operators and fueled a student debt crisis that has ballooned past the trillion-dollar mark.
But federal lawmakers surely didn't anticipate the likes of Kaydean Geist, who Friday pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Fort Wayne to a felony fraud charge. The owner of Masters of Cosmetology beauty college was charged with failing to refund student financial aid funds and will pay $300,000 in restitution to the U.S. Department of Education.
Separately, she signed a consent decree covering herself and her school. They were named in a civil lawsuit demanding a combined $11.6 million in repayment.
Geist used students as a conduit for pocketing millions in student loans, according to court records, pushing students to sign promissory notes without allowing them to read the terms. She required students to sign checks over to the school without allowing them to see the amount borrowed, telling them the loans were part of a government program that would require little, if any, repayment.
The money primarily came from the Federal Family Education Loan Program - commonly known as an indirect loan - in which borrowers got federally insured loans through private companies. The program was ended by the Obama administration in 2010 in favor of the Direct Loan Program, in which the federal government is the lender. Masters of Cosmetology students found themselves on the hook for both types of loans, even though they were not eligible to participate in both programs. Students also are limited in those programs to $30,000 in loans, but - as a result of Geist's deceptive practices - some of the beauty college's students owe far more than that amount.
The Journal Gazette's Rebecca S. Green recounted the sad stories of some of the students caught in Geist's scheme.
With principal and interest, Angie Witherby, 40, faces a debt of $105,000. A breast cancer victim, she received calls from creditors even as she was hospitalized and undergoing chemotherapy treatment. Amanda Mulkey spent just over a year at Masters of Cosmetology but left with a debt of $23,000. She told Green her credit record was ruined, along with chances of buying a home for her family.
David Capp, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana, announced Friday that most of the student loans obtained by Geist will be declared unenforceable, which means most students will not be held responsible for repayment.
That's good news, but the federal government was too slow in responding to a student loan swindle years in the making. It was only a year ago that the U.S. Department of Education released a list of colleges being monitored for student aid compliance. Five Indiana schools appeared on the list, but only Masters of Cosmetology fell under Level 2 scrutiny, which meant it could not apply for federal funds until it had used its institutional funds.
The school is now closed, of course, but not before many of its former students - who enrolled in hopes of learning job skills - had their lives and financial records forever marked by an individual exploiting a government-endorsed system.
Masters of Cosmetology is a worst-case scenario, we hope. But a study released last fall as part of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity pointed to its counterparts in the for-profit college world as the primary cause for a spike in student loan defaults overs the last decade. Borrowers at proprietary schools accounted for fewer than half of all federal loan borrowers leaving school and starting to repay their loans in 2011, according to the study, but they accounted for 70 percent of defaults.
The financial repercussions for taxpayers are obvious, but the long-term effects on the economy from borrowers with damaged credit records are staggering. The student loan mess is a lesson which should never be forgotten.
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(Terre Haute) Tribune-Star. April 20, 2016
Court punts on legislative access, lawmakers escape transparency required of the rest of the state.
Casual observers may sometimes reach the faulty conclusion that Indiana's legislature is a messy mass of tangled agendas that is fortunate to ever get anything done of consequence.
But make no mistake about it, this outfit is a crafty lot. Even when it does adopt laws based on strong, public-spirited principles, it finds a way to keep its own self-interests at heart.
Such is the case with Indiana Access to Public Records Act. When adopted, it was done so to give the legislature wide discretion about when the law actually applied to it and when it doesn't. Very convenient, wouldn't you say? When the public complains that sometimes elected legislative officials don't have to abide by the laws they pass for the rest of us, this is a prime example.
Indiana's Supreme Court ruled this week that while the legislature is covered by the public records law, it would not order that it release the contents of emails and other correspondence and would instead leave those decisions to the legislature itself. The court said doing otherwise would violate the constitution's separation of powers principle.
State advocacy groups had sought release of emails from a specific legislator to investigate whether inappropriate lobbying may have taken place concerning a piece of legislation. They were denied access, then sued and took the matter to the Supreme Court. This week's court ruling means the public will never know what, if anything, is in those emails concerning the proposed bill. That's unfortunate. But legislative leaders still have the authority, and the responsibility, to make such documents public.
Transparency in government is essential. That includes legislative proceedings. The court's ruling leaves an obstacle to transparency in place that will continue to have the potential to block public scrutiny of an important process.
We urge lawmakers to exercise caution in using discretionary powers to withhold communications of its members from public view. Such discretion should be limited. Thorough explanations should be given when they do deny access.
As Indiana's public records law states, elected officials should err on the side of access when questions arise. We hope to see the legislature demonstrate its commitment to that principle in the future.