Most of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 had been temporary, and were scheduled to expire by around 2010. Republicans in the House worked throughout 2002 to make permanent as many of these cuts as possible. Among the tax cuts they wanted to make permanent were incentives to encourage participation in pensions and retirement plans. Progressives felt that reconsideration of these incentives, combined with the scandals of Enron and other corporations, provided the perfect opportunity to reign in corporate excesses. They offered an amendment to the tax cut extension that would have required executives to pay capital gains on stock options if their companies relocated overseas, would have extended an excise tax on large severance packages, and would have taxed deferred-compensation plans that have been used to avoid bankruptcy restrictions. This amendment was rejected, 182-204.