Senate Half-Measure on Tax Cut May Yield Few Dividends

Currently, the Nickles proposal simply says that if you get a dividend from a company, you won't owe tax on it. Absent from the plan are all the details and nuances in the president's proposal -- such as the idea of reinvested dividends also being exempt from tax, essentially lowering the capital gains tax rate.

There's still a long battle ahead for what will ultimately become the tax bill -- the Senate and House must now go into conference and try to resolve those differences. But now the prognosticating in Washington is not only what will happen with this bill, it's also about what future bills this might spawn.

"If the economy is going gangbusters, the Republicans will point their fingers and say you have to extend. But if it doesn't work, and it just increased our deficit, then that's a different story," Oschenschlager says. "But in any case, Bush got more than his foot in the door -- he got both feet and an arm in."

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