Michele Bachmann explained it last night in the debate:
We've got $1.2 trillion already that's been earned by American companies overseas. If we have a 0 percent tax rate, Wolf, we can bring that 1.2 trillion -- it's called repatriation -- bring that in. You'd have 1.2 trillion flooded into the system...
And it was mentioned here already as idea no. 5 on the list of 27 Ideas for Jobs and Growth
Offer a repatriation tax holiday that would let companies like Microsoft and Cisco, with big cash stashes overseas, bring the money back to America without being taxed at our high corporate tax rates. Senator Schumer has reportedly expressed some support for this idea.
Critics might say this is not a cost-free idea, because the cost is the loss of the tax revenue that would be collected if the money is ever brought back without a holiday. I'd respond that that lost revenue is strictly theoretical, or more accurately, imaginary; without a tax holiday, the money will just stay overseas until there is one, or at least until Americas' corporate tax rates are lowered to internationally competitive levels.
Earlier: Cost-Free Job-Creating Idea No. 2: Drop the National Labor Relations Board's case against Boeing.
Cost-Free Job-Creating Idea No. 1: Repeal ObamaCare.
Thanks to all the reader-participant-community-member-watchdog-content co-creators who have already submitted ideas using the comments section, and please keep them coming. We'll be rolling them out at a rate of one each weekday until we get to 30.
