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On Saturday, President Obama during his weekly radio address spoke on his renewed call to overhaul the nation’s tax code to prevent companies from fleeing the country to avoid paying taxes.

“Even as corporate profits are as high as ever, a small but growing group of big corporations are fleeing the country to get out of paying taxes. They’re keeping most of their business inside the United States, but they’re basically renouncing their citizenship and declaring that they’re based somewhere else, just to avoid paying their fair share,” the president said. “Right now, a loophole in our tax laws makes this totally legal, and I think that’s totally wrong. You don’t get to pick which rules you play by or which tax rate you pay, and neither should these companies.”

Forbes Magazine this week reported that leaving the country–a process that tax techies call inversion–is perfectly legal. A company does this by reincorporating in a place like Ireland, where the corporate tax rate is 12.5%, compared with 35% in the U.S. Inversion also makes it easier to divert what would normally be U.S. earnings to foreign, lower-tax locales. But being legal isn’t the same as being right. If a few companies invert, it’s irritating but no big deal for our society. But mass inversion is a whole other thing, and that’s where we’re heading.

This proposal by the president has bi-partisan support as Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Michigan) issued a press release in February stating  “According to Nina Olsen, the National Taxpayer Advocate at the IRS, Americans overall spend over six billion hours and $168 billion every year to file their returns. This is stark testimony to the complexity of the tax code. Meanwhile, owners of small businesses face tax rates as high as 44.6%, while the total (state and federal) U.S. corporate rate, 39.1%, is the highest in the industrialized world.”

Camp continued, “The last time the U.S. enacted a comprehensive tax reform was 1986. But many of America’s major competitors have been actively reforming their tax laws in recent years. Even our closest neighbors are getting ahead of us. Canada has already reformed its tax laws and Mexico is doing so right now.  If Congress doesn’t take action, the U.S. risks falling further behind.”

The unfortunate aspect of Camp’s proposal is that it was flatly rejected by the Republican leadership in Congress.  Instead of rejecting it outright, Republican should have a least debate the merits of the proposal.

President Obama gave an impassionate plea in his radio address on Saturday, but he has failed to lead on this issue and just issues rhetorical condemnation of Republicans.

Forbes continued to report that the Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation projects that failing to limit inversions will cost the Treasury an additional $19.5 billion over 10 years–a number that seems way low, given the looming stampede. But even $19.5 billion–$ 2 billion a year–is a lot, if you look at it the right way. It’s enough to cover what Uncle Sam spends on programs to help homeless veterans and to conduct research to create better prosthetic arms and legs for our wounded warriors.

Both Republicans and President Obama often blame each other on why comprehensive tax reform fails to be implemented, but neither has been willing to act.

It’s time for both Republicans and President Obama to stop playing partisan politics with tax reform and start leading and just maybe the economy will begin to grow.

Unfortunately, I doubt both sides will change their partisan ways; the only real victim of inaction will be the U.S. economy.