The White House claims, incorrectly, that it has a plan to cut the deficit in half by 2008. It’s complete nonsense, but it suggests that even Bush, who has run up the largest budget deficits in the history of the world, would prefer quarter-trillion dollar shortfalls to half-trillion dollar shortfalls.
I have a hunch Karl Rove wouldn’t go for this, but the CBO has stumbled upon a possible change that would generate more tax revenue for the federal government and, in turn, reduce the deficit.
The Congressional Budget Office concluded that allowing same-sex marriage would slightly reduce the budget deficit every year for the next decade.
Some opponents of same-sex marriage have complained that it would confer costly new benefits, Social Security payments to a widow or widower. But the budget office estimates that those costs would be relatively low. In heterosexual marriages, a wife typically outlives her husband by six or seven years (both because women are generally younger than their husbands and because women outlive men), but gay partners are usually about the same age and have a similar life expectancy.
The extra Social Security payments would be more than offset by the income taxes that gays would pay because of the so-called marriage penalty, the budget office estimates, and there would be other savings because fewer gays would qualify for Medicaid and federal benefits once spouses’ incomes were factored in. The net annual gain to the government would be about $750 million by 2011.
It’d be a two-fer! We’d be establishing equal rights for millions of Americans who currently enjoy second-class status, plus we’d enjoy millions in new tax dollars.
So, how about it, Sen. Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum? Want to postpone that vote on the FMA?