Last night President Obama announced a new set of rules aimed at cracking down on tax inversions. I take issue with this because during the 2012 elections both President Obama and Mitt Romney agreed that broad corporate tax reform was necessary (they even agreed to the point during their first debate) and something they were both planning on fixing if elected. Rather than address the consequences of an antiquated corporate tax policy the President has decided to focus on a symptom of the current environment rather than attempting to cure the actual disease.
What's frustrating is that this approach is the exact opposite from the one being taken on immigration reform. Many of the most prominent voices in the technology community have been rallying for an increase in the number of H-1B visas granted each year. The administration has pushed back saying that conversation needs to be a part of the broader immigration reform debate. Google's Eric Schmidt has gone as far as saying that it is the government's stupidest policy.
It's clear that the current partisan environment in Washington is not going to yield many groundbreaking pieces of legislation in the next couple of years. If that is the case maybe the administration should work for incremental progress as opposed to trying to pass broad legislative initiatives.