Why do I Think that Obama is Playing to Lose on this Issue?

Barack Obama is now proposing a tax on foreign profits that are not repatriated:

President Barack Obama will propose that U.S.-based companies pay a minimum 19 percent tax on their future foreign earnings, capturing profits that are now often beyond the government’s reach.

Obama will also seek a 14 percent mandatory tax on about $2 trillion in stockpiled offshore profits, said two people familiar with his budget proposals, declining to be named because the document won’t be made public until Feb. 2. Companies would pay that tax regardless of whether they bring the money back to the U.S., the two said, creating a revenue stream the president would use to pay for roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects.

Obama’s latest proposals add new details to the administration’s efforts to revamp the U.S. business tax system. The issue has been stalled in Congress, though lawmakers of both parties say they see potential room for agreement on business taxes.

In one sense, Obama is offering U.S. companies the kind of system they have sought -- one with lower corporate marginal tax rates and with future foreign profits subject to little or no extra U.S. tax when brought home.

However, he’s offering to do so on terms that are less favorable than companies would want, with rates that could mean significant tax increases for companies that have been shifting profits to jurisdictions such as Bermuda and Ireland and paying less than 10 percent on their foreign profits.

Do you want me to map out the road map here?

1. Obama proposes corporate tax reform which includes tax cuts juxtaposed with progressive changes to the tax code.
2. As would be expected by anyone who can fog a mirror, the Republicans categorically reject the progressive changes to the tax code, and propose elimination of ordinary folks' tax decuctions along with the tax cuts on businesses.
3. Obama caves, and the rest of us get f%$#ed.

The trick here is that if you have been listening to Obama over the past few years, this is something that he supported.  He has long been making noises about tax ciode "reforms" that consist largely of eliminating middle class tax cuts (mortgage deduction in particular),

This is not a meaningful tax proposal, this is political atmospherics.