Editor: On tax reform, what will Jindal do?

Business Report Executive Editor JR Ball opens his latest column with a quotation from Scripture, then acknowledges that injecting Bible verses into any secular discussion is always a risk—especially when the topic involves government. “Yet, given Gov. Bobby Jindal’s hard alignment with the religious right, it seems appropriate to reflect on the Gospel of Mark when contemplating the governor’s stated desire to overhaul Louisiana’s cumbersome, confusing, antiquated and unfair tax code,” Ball writes. Mark 12:41-44, the passage in question, tells the story of Jesus observing people in the temple putting money into a treasury. Some rich people put in large sums; a poor widow puts in two small coins. Jesus is quoted as saying to his disciples: “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.” Ball says the verses become all the more relevant “when one considers that during the same week when LED’s Stephen Moret and Tim Barfield, the executive counsel for the state Department of Revenue, hit the streets to begin laying the foundation for tax reform, a report by The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities declared that Louisiana ranks sixth among states with the largest income disparity between rich and poor.” Read the full column here. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.