Nina Easton of Fortune magazine remains unimpressed by job-creating ideas from both the Obama administration and congressional Republicans that involve higher taxes.

President Obama wants a one-time tax — to generate revenue for government-sponsored jobs on programs like infrastructure — on the estimated $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion of foreign earnings companies leave overseas. Needless to say, this tax-to-spend idea was a nonstarter with the GOP. House Republicans want a similar one-time tax, at 5.25%, but want to use the revenue to revamp the corporate tax code to help finance a “territorial system” to permanently reduce the taxes paid on overseas earnings.

So it’s a Groundhog Day gridlock all over again: Republicans think the private sector should create jobs — and high taxes are in the way. The White House thinks government should create jobs — and tax-dodging corporations stand in the way.

Just about everyone agrees that companies are keeping at least part of that $2 trillion overseas to avoid the highest corporate tax rate in the world. And most economists agree that there are U.S. jobs in that thar gold. So why not borrow Nike’s “Just do it” motto with a two-year tax holiday on foreign earnings — but only for earnings used to produce jobs here?

White House allies have dismissed a repatriation holiday as another business-backed tax dodge, and it’s true that permanent corporate tax reform is needed. But President Clinton’s campaign economic adviser, Robert J. Shapiro, chairman of the finance consultancy firm Sonecon, estimates that this temporary measure would generate 750,000 to 1.35 million jobs over two years. Shapiro’s proposal would impose a 5.25% rate, but only if companies expand their domestic workforces and total payrolls by at least 5%. (The tax rate could be lowered further as companies create more jobs.)

Countering critics of a similar 2004 tax holiday who say that the measure only enriched corporate coffers, Shapiro says this program would be directly keyed to job creation as its central mission. “You’ve got this big pot of money out there,” he tells me. “Let’s lower the costs of hiring.”