Obama opts for ideological blinders on domestic protectionism

I have never been a fan of President Obama's rhetoric on American corporations getting things done outside the US (like here, here, and here.)

These corporations do not go overseas out of any lack of patriotism, which is something only real people can feel. (Despite the law treating corporations as people, I like that old and tested question: when was the last time Texas, which executes real people by the dozens every year, executed a corporation?)  Corporations get things done in China or India or wherever because that works in the best interests of its customers and shareholders.  If a corporation didn't and, thereby, offered lower quality widgets or ran a loss, then customers or shareholders, or both, would flee those corporations and, unlike Texas, kill the business.

The crafty manipulator of words that Obama is, he didn't refer to the outsourcing per se in the State of the Union address, but couched it as a tax code abuse:

a tax code that lowers incentives to move jobs overseas, and lowers tax rates for businesses and manufacturers that create jobs right here in America. That’s what tax reform can deliver.

Could there be corporations finding opportunities in the tax code to their benefit?  Of course there will in plenty.  But, surely that tax code is not the reason why Apple gets the iProducts manufactured in China, or why IBM is the second largest private sector employer in India--even more than its payroll in the US--is it?

I am so tired of Obama's rhetoric on this, which is clearly not meant as a call for action as much as to satisfy his voting base.  The pragmatic and calculating politician that he is, well, there is no way Obama will go after the corporations that are political cash cows, and with which many of his trusted associates have long-running professional associations.  Further, as this WaPo blog notes:

No progress has been made on reforming the tax code. Obama has repeatedly proposed changing tax breaks to reward companies that stay in the United States and punish those that leave, but there has been little enthusiasm in Congress, even when Democrats controlled the House..  

It didn't go anywhere because it is, after all, a game that Democrats put on for their base to applaud.  They don't mean to act on it, and can also blame the GOP for not being able to get this done.  Further, as this rather sarcastic note at Forbes points out:

To hear this administration call for tax reform and simplification is akin to hearing your fat uncles chide you to lay off the Snickers. It’s sound advice, but they’ve got no business being the ones to deliver it.
Keep in mind; this is the same administration that recently did the impossible, and made a 70,000-page Internal Revenue Code infinitely more complicated.
We now have SEVEN ordinary income tax rates, with the top rate of 39.6% kicking in at taxable income of $450,000 for married couples ($400,000 for single).
Starting in 2013, long-term capital gains can conceivably be taxed at 0%, 15%, 18.8%, 20%, 23.8%, 25% and 28% rates depending on various characteristics of your tax return and the nature of your gain.

My head spins from merely reading that piece at Forbes!

Of course, Obama's words immediately echoed on the other side of the world, in India:

With President Barack Obama dropping another major hint that his second term in office will witness the emergence of a strong liberal economic agenda, policymakers in countries competing with the U.S. must be wondering what his State of the Union references to attracting jobs back on-shore implies.

My point is this: will we benefit from a simpler tax code? Yes.  No doubt about it. But, please do not try to fool us by linking the tax code to why US corporations conduct operations overseas.