Companies have these massive cash reserves because they are massively profitable each year and need somewhere to store the excess. So I fundamentally disagree with your argument that they have projects they want to fund and don't because they can't easily access the overseas cash. We're talking about tens of billions of dollars here for many companies, not $100M to sink into a new department or research project, which they can either easily fund out of operating revenue or get a loan for at less than 5% interest.

As I stated in another comment, the only winners of the 2004 repatriation holiday were shareholders and executives, not the American public. That's a big reason why people don't want a repeat.