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TIME.com: They're Getting Richer! -- Aug. 18, 2003: "The ink was still wet on president Bush's stock-dividend tax-rate cut in early June when Corus Bankshares in Chicago voted to triple its annual payout. CEO Robert Glickman said the move was 'solely in reaction' to the new tax treatment and that he was 'very pleased' to provide shareholders with a beefy new payment. Little wonder. The Glickman family owns half the company, and his 25% stake in the bank will generate $5.8 million in annual after-tax income, up from $1.3 million."

The article goes on to talk about Sandy Weill, CEO of Citigroup, getting a similar windfall. Which is not to say that there's anything illegal going on here. No, as often happens, the real scandal is what is legal. These businesses and CEOs are behaving entirely rationally in response to the Bush administration's dividend tax cut. The cut, you'll recall, the Bush administration was selling as "double taxation" and "unfair", with emphasis on the number of American households who owned stock, as though every single one of them would see a tax benefit.

When you eliminate the households who own stocks but do not generate enough dividend income to be taxable (the first $400 isn't) and the households who only generate dividend income in 401(k) or other tax-sheltered plans (who were actually hurt by the tax cut because their dividends were already tax-free and will be taxed as normal income when withdrawn from the plan), you discover that at most 1/4 of American households will see any benefit at all from the dividend tax cut.

And, as some of us tried to warn people beforehand, households like the Glickmans and Weills are getting the lion's share of the benefits.