Same-Sex Marriage--Costly Gov. Expansion and Economic Burden

Liberals and gay-friendly economists have championed the alleged economic advantages of legalizing same-sex marriage, and they have given glowing reports on the financial benefits to states derived from legalization, particularly for early entries (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE)

However, many of these reports only consider the revue side of the ledger and not the cost side, and they conveniently omit other important factors from the equation. (See HERE)

Even still, assuming that the trend continues and same-sex marriage is legalized at the federal level and then nation-wide, one of the unavoidable Leftist LUNCs will be the costly expansion of government and the increased burden on the economy as a whole.

When one factors in the loss of revenue to the fed and states due to marital tax incentives and death benefits, as well as the expensive outlays for the 1,138 federal marital benefits alone (see HERE), the cost may be staggering, though near impossible to fully calculate (while some organizations have, in part, tried--see HERE and HERE and HERE), not to mention adding in the expense to states and private business for health insurance and death benefits (see HERE and HERE), particularly given that same-sex couples tend to be less healthy than heterosexual couples and require more health services (see HERE and HERE and HERE).

Yet, using the figures reported by gay advocates, where benefits of same-sex marriage to gay couples are said to be as high as $500,000.00 over their lifetime (see HERE and HERE), and assuming optimistically that all 646,000 gay households (see HERE) become legally married, the total burden born by the government and the economy at large would be $323 billion dollars (see HERE). Others have suggested "the number would more realistically be $224 billion to $182 billion over a 'lifetime'  or $4.48 billion to $3.64 billion per year" based on the 50 year estimated span). (See HERE)

And, this doesn't even consider the additional cost to state and local courts for adjudicating same-sex marital disputes, nor does it include the sizable cost to governments for funding of same-sex procreation methods. (See HERE).

Even if one looks more realistically, and figures that only 10 percent of the gay households will legalize their relationships, it still amounts to a staggering $32 billion dollars.

Since we are suffering from one of the worst economies since the Great Depression (see HERE and HERE and HERE), and in light of the spiraling national debt (see HERE), which has exceeded $16 trillion, the added costs of legalizing same-sex marriage couldn't have come at a worse time.

This thought is made all the worse when realizing that for all the public and private money to be divvied out to gay marriages, there will be little if any social benefited in return.

NEXT in SERIES    START SERIES    SUBJECT INDEX

For an explanation as to why these same-sex marriage Leftist LUNC have happened, see: The politics of Victimization, Compassion, Equality, Emotions, Bullying, Propaganda and Disinformation. [the unlinked topics will be posted later as they are completed]