Our society has thousands of ways of biasing in favor of families with children. This is a good thing, but, frankly, it's not explicitly done, and therefore, easily subject to manipulation. Perhaps it is time to remove those implicit subsidies, 'flatening' the tax struture, while adding explicit subsidies for families raising children.
There's a tax target here - married folks without children currently have the highest discretionary incomes. Part of this reason is their ability to tag along on some of the implicit ways our society favors families. And this is where I start when deliberating on my own personal conclusions about gay rights. Please note as a single person these ideas would also mean a small rise in the amount of taxes I would pay(mortgage deduction) - though hopefully also less societally allowed discrimination in the workplace.
Marriage, family, is the institution society has created to raise children, though partnerships can exist without kids. Family is also the basis of many religions, and that's fine. Personally, I think we should take current debates on gay rights as an opportunity to clean up some of the implicit practices and biases we have around these building blocks of society, as well as in our tax structure.
Marriage should be considered 'religious' territory on which the state shall not tread.
In contrast to 'marriage' state civil unions should be basic guarantees for all individuals - including dissolution. Gay 'marriage' then is a question of which 'church', not the state, (even California!), Some churches may choose to allow gay marriage, some may not - and there may well be 'churches' of folks that are essentially atheist as well. The moral positions of 'religion' extend beyond where we ever want the State to go, even for the godless. And, similarly, we don't want the state telling religions that they must marry gays.
Gays, if motivated solely by the financial benefits of the institution, should be dissuaded. Sure, there are benefits from having a partner, but those stem from each other, not so much society. Rights of survivorship and the like are throwbacks to a time of gender inequality when one partner was economically dependent on the other. Certainly domestic partners in civil unions should be eligible for inclusion in medical plans, however the employer should never be required to pay for the partner's costs. That's gay or straight, unless, of course there are children and/or a stay at home parent. Marriage should be for a mutually shared, and defined, love, not for 'benefits' , regardless of whether there are children or not.
Assuming an inequality between partners is also something we should strive to get rid of in our state benefit practices. However, if a woman chooses to take that inequality as part of her marriage vows in exchange for other priviliges that is her choice. Likely there will always be men to fulfill such desires.
But the raising of a child is definitely an area for the State to support - just as everyone supports schools even those without kids. Some parents will choose to work, some to stay at home, and most will likely do both, depending on the current situation of their lives.
So, my humble proposal - why not drop all family related tax breaks - a flat tax, if you will, in this area. In exchange provide direct payments to all families, on the order of current welfare payments for the raising of children? FWIW, I'd also lower the payments when kids get to school age.
Now, I haven't run the numbers on this, so definitely the concept would need some fine tuning even before final consideration. But, in my mind, the arguements are compelling. Raising children is work, and society should reward those who do it - if a person chooses to contract that task out to childcare before the school years, than so be it. If they choose to stay at home and make it their full time task (so long as someone else is providing the home.) that too should be a question of choice, not necessity.
That said, I do also think that some sort of childcare cooperatives formed on a local basis would also be a good idea - charter pre-schools, if you will. Similarly, providing for local parent care of kids during those crucial after school hours is also important.
Comments (1)
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Posted by DAMION BREWER | February 9, 2010 5:19 AM
Posted on February 9, 2010 05:19