What's bigger: $2 billion or $2.46 trillion?
No, this isn't a trick question.
The $2 billion number is the amount of tax revenue Uncle Sam may miss out on each year over the next decade due to the much-maligned practice known as "corporate tax inversions."
This nefarious and evil practice is so bad that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew made it the cornerstone of his opening address at CNBC's Delivering Alpha last month. Then President Obama himself got on the inversion-bashing bandwagon, mentioning it in several speeches and going so far as to describe the practice as "unpatriotic."
Read MoreDemocrats don't want to solve tax-inversion issue: Myrow
Type in "corporate tax inversions" on your Google search bar and you'll get almost 2.2 million results.
All this for an estimated $2 billion in annual revenue.
Now let's get to that $2.46 trillion number. That's the amount of money in tax revenues the federal government has taken in from Oct. 1 to July 31. Yes, that's a new record high. And it's also almost $130 billion more than the feds took in during the same period last year.
Read MoreUS tax burden not as heavy as it looks, report says
In just the last 10 months, the increase alone on Uncle Sam's tax haul is more than 65 times the annual "loss" the federal government may or may not be suffering from corporate tax inversions.
In other words, the White House, Congressional Democrats, and the easily-duped news media has fallen for a cheap class-warfare political smokescreen about taxes, while Washington is hauling in more of all of our tax money than ever.
Some of this is good news. Even with our high corporate tax rates, the government couldn't be taking in record revenues if the economy weren't improving and generating more profits and jobs.
But a lot of this is also bad news. Not only is the Obama administration not satisfied with its record $246 billion per month in tax revenues, it's still very busy looking for ways to shake us all down for even more cash. And if getting more money means sliming American corporations and encouraging more division, hatred, and envy in our society … so be it.
As long as we're all focused on corporate tax avoidance, the needed emphasis on cutting spending stays out of the conversation entirely.
Many conservatives like CNBC's Larry Kudlow have rightly pointed out that while the administration bashes American businesses, it never says a word about actually reforming our highest-in-the-industrialized-world corporate tax rates. After all, the reason why businesses are looking to execute the tax inversions is because the rates are so high to begin with. What's so patriotic about a tax and regulatory structure that drives companies and jobs overseas? President Obama's Washington is literally a trillionaire blaming the victim.
Read MoreWhat if Obama defended business for once: Larry Kudlow
But again, even the needed push to lower corporate tax rates clouds out the bigger picture. That is, the government money vacuum is running faster and stronger than ever.
And it wants more — so much more.
And what about you and me? Where can we go to reincorporate ourselves to avoid our ever-growing tax burden that's feeding that $2.46 trillion monster? The answer is nowhere.
President Obama, the Democrats, and most the news media aren't doing anyone any good by focusing on tax inversions. The focus should be on asking, "How much is too much?" And, "What the heck are we getting for our $2.46 trillion anyway?"
But those questions aren't being asked and Washington is getting away with your money.
Commentary by Jake Novak, supervising producer of "Street Signs." Follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny.
