Fifteen years after the 9/11 attacks triggered its ill-starred invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States finds itself engaged in a three-way contest for global influence with its old rival Russia and a surging China. Climate change is a growing threat around the world. In response, the Republican Party is seeking a tax cut. The heart of the undertaking is a reduction of relatively high US corporate tax rates. That much is a measure on whose desirability experts right and left can agree. But to compensate for revenue losses arising from various accompanying provisions in the 440-page bill (including inheritance tax abolition, personal…