By that measure, the Utah Legislature got through its recent session in a mature manner by refusing to use this year's boosted state income as an excuse to hand out popular tax cuts, including the one earnestly sought by the rookie in the governor's mansion.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s proposal to phase out the state's corporate income tax, a move that would eventually cost the state's school fund some $200 million a year, was wisely rejected by lawmakers who correctly wanted to know where they would make up the funds.

Lawmakers did approve a much smaller tax break for businesses that export much of their product. But Huntsman wanted the whole 5 percent corporate tax phased out, not because he argued that it was unfair or unneeded, but because he wants to be able to brag about it when he puts on his economic development cloak and goes in search of new business for the state.

A zero corporate tax might have made an attractive slide on Huntsman's PowerPoint presentation - especially to post-office-box front companies that groove on that sort of thing.

But the example of a management team that sliced off one of its own sources of revenue without any plan for either raising other revenue or reducing spending to compensate does not necessarily cut the business-savvy image Huntsman seeks to project in Fortune 500 boardrooms.

A much better sales presentation, and much better governance, would be a carefully worked out, comprehensive tax-reform package of the kind that former Gov. Olene Walker left on her desk for anyone interested enough to read it.

Walker's plan included a repeal of the corporate tax, but also found significant other revenue sources. The most farsighted of them was to start collecting sales tax on the fastest-growing part of the economy, the service sector.

At a time when other economic thinkers, notably Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, have proposed shifting at least partly away from income taxes and toward consumption taxes, Walker's idea takes on new credibility.

And the long-proposed Jones-Mascaro tax reform approach, which primarily shifts the burden of income taxes from the lower-income to higher-income families, has always been an attractive idea.

Utah may well decide it can live, perhaps even live better, without corporate taxes. But we haven't come anywhere near doing the math on that one.