Be serious

A MONTH before the first primary contest in Iowa, the Republican race is more warlike than wonkish. Yet the candidates have found time to write sometimes intricate plans to reform America’s taxes (). Though no one blueprint will become law, if America chooses a Republican president, he may well have a Republican Congress to work with. At that point, the winner’s tax plan will seem less like a campaign gimmick and more like a promise to be kept.Republicans are right to seek to reform America’s incoherent, tangled-up tax system. America’s corporate tax is a toxic combination of a high rate—the highest in the OECD—and a series of complex distortions, which encourage bad behaviour such as gorging on debt and stashing cash in foreign subsidiaries. Republicans rightly want to cut the rate and put an end to most of the distortions. Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush would also let businesses deduct the cost of their investments from their taxes immediately, rather than as their assets deteriorate and lose value. This would encourage investment and boost economic growth.