Rep. Richard Hanna is one of the many new members of Congress with a no-nonsense business background. He is determined to move the GOP in the direction of major tax and spending reforms. When I chatted to the congressman, he told me that he had already read my Global Tax Revolution, so he will be well-armed in tackling business tax reform!

Hanna is off to a good start with his “American Competitiveness Act,” which would chop the federal corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. He notes that “the average rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries is just over 25 percent, meaning the effective U.S. corporate tax burden, when state and local taxes are considered, can be 50 percent higher than some of our developed competitors, rendering our companies and workers less competitive.”

In his State of the Union address, President Obama said that he is willing to cut the corporate tax rate. So corporate tax reform could be the 2011 version of the Clinton-GOP welfare reforms of 1996. That is, a major pro-market success made possible by a liberal president moving to the pragmatic center.

Upcoming: On February 23, Cato will release new estimates of corporate “effective” tax rates by tax scholars Jack Mintz and Duanjie Chen. The study will shed further light on the dangerous uncompetitiveness of the U.S. corporate tax system.