The tax cut package which emerged from the Senate Finance Committee replaced President Bush's proposed dividends tax elimination with a new fifteen percent tax rate for dividends (dividends are corporate payouts to shareholders). In an effort to make the dividends tax cut more in line with the President's proposal, Senator Don Nickles offered an amendment to exempt fifty percent of dividend payments from taxation in 2003 and 100 percent of those payments in 2004 through 2006. The increased amount provided in dividends tax cuts would be offset by reducing the tax breaks provided to married couples. Progressives opposed the Nickles measure because, in their view, providing additional tax breaks to married couples is a greater priority than enacting additional tax breaks for high-income earners (dividends disproportionately benefit the wealthy). The vote on the Nickles amendment was a 50-50 tie. Acting in his capacity as the President of the Senate, Vice President Dick Cheney cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of the Nickles measure and it was adopted 51-50.