The Wall Street Journal

Bobby Jindal Wants All to Pay Some Income Tax
The Wall Street Journal

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, seeking to breathe life into his presidential campaign, is taking a sharply different approach to tax policy than his Republican rivals.

The presidential contender plans to unveil a tax plan Wednesday in Iowa whose goal is to make all citizens pay at least some federal income tax. That puts Mr. Jindal at the center of a long-running debate over who foots the cost of federal spending.

“We simply must require that every American has some skin in this game,” Mr. Jindal said in a written statement. “If we have generations of Americans who never pay any taxes, it will be very easy for them to turn a blind eye to absurd government spending and to continue to allow our government to bankrupt our nation.”

Mr. Jindal takes a different tack on taxes than his GOP rivals, particularly those looking to shield more Americans from paying federal income taxes at all, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and real-estate developer Donald Trump. Mr. Bush would nearly double the standard deduction and estimates under his plan that roughly 15 million additional Americans would “no longer bear any income-tax liability.”

“Jeb [Bush] and [Donald] Trump are campaigning on a promise that they are going to move more people off of the tax rolls,” said Bob Williams of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. “Jindal is going the other way.”

C’est un point intéressant que fait valoir Bobby Jindal.

Tous les citoyens, riches ou pauvres, devraient payer des taxes. On peut discuter longtemps des taux de taxation, mais pas du fait qu’un citoyen qui ne paye pas de taxe ne pourra jamais prendre de décisions éclairées quand viendra le temps de voter. Influencer le débat public sans y participer monétairement, c’est n’être imputable de rien !