Gay marriage: crunching the numbers

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy reading the “Primary Sources” section of The Atlantic? (Oh, it turns out, yes, I have.) It always has several interesting tidbits of information. In the October issue, there’s a neat data map on telephone call traffic between the U.S. and other countries. Did you know that based on volume of international calls, the U.S.’s fourth most frequent calling partner is the Philippines (behind Canada, Mexico, and the U.K.)?

But what I really wanted to mention was another item in this issue: a blurb about a Congressional Budget Office study on the fiscal impact of gay marriage.

While most people are wondering how gay marriage might influence American culture, the family, and the institution of marriage, the Congressional Budget Office has calculated what it might do to the deficit. If America’s approximately 600,000 cohabiting homosexual couples tied the knot and the federal government recognized their marriages, the CBO finds, the effect on taxes and spending would cut the deficit by $350 million to $450 million annually over the next five years. A large proportion of the new crop of joint tax filers would be hit with the marriage penalty, raising Uncle Sam’s share of their earnings. Meanwhile, spending outlays for Social Security and health care would increase only modestly or, under some assumptions, actually decline. But before socially liberal deficit hawks reach for another snort of champagne, they should remember that the windfall from same-sex marriage is insignificant alongside a federal deficit expected to hit $445 billion for fiscal 2004.

» “The Revenue That Dare Not Speak Its Name,” The Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 2004.
» “The Potential Budgetary Impact of Recognizing Same-Sex Marriages,” Congressional Budget Office, 21 June 2004.