GorT has many years of experience in working in and around the federal government and if there’s one thing that I’ve learned, it’s that when the government faces a problem it generally puts the same people in change of fixing it that own the current problem.  Many will say, “hey, that’s a good idea, GorT, they are making them take responsibility for the problem.”  However, here is the rub: these people only know what they know and therefore, they largely apply the same approaches to the problem.  I’ve seen this repeatedly when it comes to IT issues.  Far too often there is a better solution to the problem but the struggle is to reinvent the process, system, or organization from the ground up.

This principle is no different than what you should think of when you think about the recent Congressional hearing at which Tim Cook of Apple and others testified.  The liberal reaction is one that straddles the line between nationalism and outrage.  They think that it is incomprehensible why some American company would want to shift business such that large portions of its taxable income is situated in countries with more favorable corporate tax rates.  In other words, those that are outraged at companies such as Apple taking advantage of these situations are, in essence championing that companies should pursue unwise business practices for the sole reason of paying taxes in the United States.  Consider for a moment, that 61% of Apple’s business comes from international (non-U.S.) sources.  Why shouldn’t they house a large portion of their funds overseas?

The Volgi, GorT and ‘Puter in their Toughskins back in the day

The conservative members of Congress at these hearings should have advocated a more phoenix-like stance.  By this, I mean that they should be advocating a total revamp of the United States Tax Code.  For too many years, this country has patched the tax code like it’s an old pair of Toughskins jeans and we’re stitching denim patches over all these “loopholes”.  And at this point we reach a fundamental disagreement between liberals and conservative: liberals believe in punitive measures to attempt to change individual (and therefore corporate) behaviors while conservatives believe in incentive-based measures to do so (although one could argue that conservatives really believe that there should be no measures whatsoever).  And by incentive-based measures here, I mean that the United States should consider a significant reduction in corporate taxes and capital gains taxes.  I believe that instead of having an atrocious corporate tax environment, this approach will incentivize American companies to operate (from a tax perspective) largely from the United States and it will entice foreign companies to move more operations to the United States.  Now the bean counters will call for how we are going to “pay for” these tax breaks but it isn’t something to “pay for”.  This is a wise corporate tax environment and we should be – and need to be as the global economy continues to evolve – more agile in our approach.  This includes how we fund, prioritize, and operate various federal government functions.

* For those that don’t grasp the subtle reference, Hans Brinker was the Dutch boy who stuck his fingers in the dike.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.