State News

Indiana trolls Michigan with billboard near border

May 24, 2020, 6:26 AM
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Indiana, a blood-red state with the policy to show for it, sometimes likes to mess with its prettier neighbor to the north. Knowing it has little to offer the world outside of a 500-mile auto race and John Mellencamp, it will sometimes taunt visitors coming in from its neighboring states. 

These visitors are generally either passing through, visiting friends or -- this is the real lure of the border -- buying cheap cigarettes. But Indiana doesn't care, oh no it doesn't. Indiana will sometimes put up billboards at its borders with higher-tax states, touting its own, lower taxes, but never mentioning its crappier services, its buffoon-packed state legislature or John Mellencamp.

Now one of those billboards is aimed at us. 

On I-69, just south of the Indiana Toll Road of I-80/90 (which it sold because Privatization, to a company that went bankrupt), stands a billboard saying hey, come on in, get coronavirus with us Hoosiers!

Kidding. It actually touts Indiana as the "free-to-roam state," whatever that means. Michigan Chamber of Commerce President Rich Studley approves, as seen below:

Clever! This billboard, if our recollection stands, is near one of those cheap-cigarettes emporia, so you can score a few cartons of Marlboros to help the 'rona find a nice warm berth in your lungs. 

The Free Press reports:

Steve Swick, president of Swick Broadcasting Company and owner and author of the billboard, said the message is meant as a positive one to encourage Michiganders to come over to Indiana.

"We go to parks, we can go to restaurants, we can go to the lake, you can fish, you can boat, etc. Where Michigan's Gov. Whitmer is actually locking things down even more and people are frustrated," Swick said.

They have lakes in northern Indiana, too. And cheaper cigarettes. Wash your hands.


Read more:  Detroit Free Press


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