mr. speaker , it is , i think , a terrible mistake to leave out tax relief for dividends . 
these are the usually small amounts of money that go to people , many seniors , who have invested in a company ; and these are the dividends that help ease their retirement . 
back a few years ago , we saw a number of wall street companies go under , the enrons , the worldcoms , all those dot-com technology companies . 
they had big stock prices . 
they had great pieces of paper saying they were wonderful companies , but the fact of the matter is they were built on thin air . 
what we did under this legislation is we said to the companies , prove that you have a solid profit-and-loss statement , you have real assets , show us the money ; pay it out in dividends , we will lower the cost , lower the taxes on those dividends . 
since we created this tax legislation , now fortune 500 companies , one out of four that did not provide dividends in the past , are now providing real money to real people who have invested in them . 
in other words , we have changed the culture from what is good this quarter and what is good for my stock price to what is the best long term , real growth , solid businesses in america . 
we have changed the culture of wall street because of this dividend tax relief . 
it is very important we not go back to the bad old days of high stock prices but built on thin air . 
we need businesses that are in it for the long term , that pay cash to real people , that when my mom or your mom or some other senior invests they know they are going to get a chance for a solid dividend that they can actually keep because they invested . 
this dividend relief , mr. speaker , is vitally important . 
i oppose the democrat substitute . 
i support keeping in dividend relief , both for our seniors and our investors , and to keep wall street honest . 
