A National Post report from Canada illustrates how jurisdictional competition pushes policymakers to adopt better tax law. Indeed, both the left and right are fighting over who can make the biggest reduction in the corporate tax rate. As the article notes, this is a remarkable development since politicians used to treat companies as cash cows.

With nations all over the world lowering corporate rates, America’s punitive tax treatment of business is becoming an even bigger obstacle to competitiveness:

Who would have thought federal politics would come to this: Liberals and Conservatives competing over who would lower corporate taxes the most! …That…marks an amazing turn of fortune, an historic reversal of at least half a century of corporate-bashing tax increases, of surtaxes on taxes, of capital taxes piled on surtaxes rolled over from year to year.

…[T]here is certainly much to be said for [Canadian Prime Minister] Flaherty’s corporate tax objectives. First he aims to get the federal tax rate down to 15% by 2012. Then he wants the provinces to join the national corporate tax competition by cutting their rates to 10%, thus lowering Canada’s nationwide corporate tax rate to 25%. That means, said Mr. Flaherty, that “Canada’s corporate tax rate will become the lowest among the major industrialized economies.” It’s a good objective — for the economy, for growth, for innovation — and a sign perhaps that most Canadians have come to appreciate that nations and their citizens get rich by freeing business enterprises rather than by plundering them for instant cash.

…Countries all over the planet are rushing to trim tax rates on business… Jack Mintz, of the University of Toronto, pointed out yesterday that Italy has just slashed that rate by 4.5 percentage points. Other countries are cutting rates in large increments of up to seven percentage points, as in Germany. The new Flaherty cuts are good, says Mr. Mintz, but not good enough. “Why not cut rates right away?” It’s also not clear that 25% is low enough to maximize business activity and attract business investment to Canada. In his recent tax competitiveness study for the C.D. Howe Institute, Mr. Mintz called for a national corporate tax rate of 20%.

…The next needed political transformation: It’s OK to cut taxes on the rich.