How best to scare America away from equality? Not by pulling at their heartstrings or delivering moral debates, but by talking about things in dollars and sense. So when the Congressional Budget Office — that nonpartisan federal agency charged with letting lawmakers know how expensive their bills will be — concluded the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act would cost $898 million over the next nine years, it was time to scare America!
First and foremost, $898 million, over nine years, is not actually a lot of money to the U.S. government. The Los Angeles Unified School District received almost exactly that amount ($829,086,696) from the federal government, this year, as part of its “recovery”/stimulus package. And the $1.1 trillion federal spending bill includes some $3.9 billion in earmarks that lawmakers attached to benefit their own states; one Minnesota rep scored $28 million in transportation dollars for his district.
But that way FoxNews.com is phrasing things —
The CBO said in its Dec. 17 report that the House version of the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act — H.R. 2517 — would cost $596 million in direct spending and $302 million in discretionary spending through 2019.
The independent nonpartisan agency found that “providing additional health insurance benefits through the Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) program” — for active and retired gay federal workers with spouses — “causes the largest increase in both mandatory and discretionary spending — $590 million and $266 million, respectively.”
The analysis notes, however, that enacting the legislation “would not have any direct impact on federal revenues.”
A 2004 analysis by CBO projected that federal outlays for domestic partners receiving federal benefits would cost about $100 million per year in 2010-2014 if the federal government approved same-sex marriage. Of the total, coverage for same-sex spouses of retired enrollees in the FEHB program would cost the government less than $50 million a year through 2014.
The 2004 report was written at the request of then-Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, an opponent of same sex marriage.
This year’s legislation, sponsored by Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., an openly gay lawmaker, and with 138 cosponsors, would allow for homosexual partners of federal employees to receive the same benefits as married spouses, which include health insurance, survivor annuities, compensation for work-related injuries and travel and relocation benefits.
— is angering The Blogs, which faults the media giant’s obvious social agenda.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
But there’s no use getting upset with Fox’s alleged spin; the true numbers from CBO — despite whether you’re agreeing with the agency this week — are in there, and that’s where the debate must begin.
But not end.
Because $898M over nine years (under $100M/year) is a pretty small price tag, comparatively, to ensure American families that happen to be gay 1) receive adequate health care; and 2) are not discriminated against simply because two adults who love each other are the same sex.
edgyguy1426
if you counter balance this with how much a state would bring in with marriage eqaulity, I think people would be surprised to see the numbers crunched
what
Doing away with slavery cost the US in GNP. Maybe we should revisit that???
Yeah, I thought so…
Robert, NYC
The next time the haters start railing against same-sex benefits for federal workers and how “costly” it will be, then we have to demand that if that’s their case, then no more benefits should be extended to future opposite sex partners using the same ploy. No more spending, period. The same argument can be made for the anti marriage equality opponents in regard to benefits for state workers. If its too costly for same-sex couples who marry, then its equally too costly for future opposite sex couples.
AxelDC
$90 million/year??? That’s like one fighter jet.
How about mentioning how much in taxes gay citizens pay every year? If they don’t want to treat us like equal citizens, why should we pay equal taxes?
If 5% of Americans are gay, and pay an average Federal income tax of $10,000 a year, then gay Americans easily pay $100 billion per year in taxes. The $90 million for equal benefits for Federal workers, who do just as much work as their heterosexual colleagues, amounts to 0.01% rebate of gay taxes paid every year.
That, of course, excludes the social security taxes we don’t get to pass onto our spouses, and the hundreds of billions we pay for a military that openly discriminates against us.
Robert, NYC
AxelDC, exactly my point. Further, why should we have to pay taxes towards the public education system and the offspring of the breeders who produce them when we can’t even get married? This is nothing more than zero representation with full taxation, something is definitely wrong with that equation and needs to be addressed. The 14th amendment is supposed to guarantee equal protection for minorities, but somehow, it doesn’t apply to LGBT people, deliberately so. Religious cults who believe in discriminating let alone advocate against us get full representation without taxation. Not one democrat has bothered to even recognize the anomaly. We need to start making noise, as loud as possible. This is not democracy at all, not for us at least.
Attmay
Since when is the government concerned about saving money? When they can take it from us. The real issue is what marriage apartheid is costing same-sex couples per year.
Time for gays to tell the IRS to go fuck itself. I, for one, would love to see the 16th Amendment repealed and the federal government’s authority to rob us at gunpoint brought to a close, or at the very least a limit placed on how much they can steal from us.
B
No. 4 · AxelDC wrote, “$90 million/year??? That’s like one fighter jet.” … as the late senator Everett Dirkson was supposed to have said, “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you are talking about real money.” It give you an idea of the size of the federal budget (and his “billion” was some 40 years ago, so imagine what it would be today).
Alas, the quote may be a myth, according to http://www.dirksencenter.org/print_emd_billionhere.htm :
Update, May 25, 2004. A gentleman who called The Center with a reference question relayed that he sat by Dirksen on a flight once and asked him about the famous quote. Dirksen replied, “Oh, I never said that. A newspaper fella misquoted me once, and I thought it sounded so go that I never bothered to deny it.”
Update, January 15, 2009. We received a call from someone in Pennsylvania who recalled a very clear, even emphatic memory of Senator Dirksen uttering this famous phrase on the “Johnny Carson Show.” This is the second person who shared such a recollection. Unfortunately, a Google search failed to turn up confirmation—apparently the “official” Web site for the “Tonight Show” has video beginning only in 1969—Dirksen died in September of that year.
terrwill
We give half billion dollars in foreign aid to that cess
pool of a “nation” uganda…………..
Brian NJ
The money is not extra money we would be getting, it is the amount we are SUBSIDIZING the government for their civil rights FAILURES. It is the amount we are getting rooked for.
Cam
This issue is ridiculous. It would be like saying “This is how much it costs to insure women….so should we stop?”
Beyond idiotic if that is the type of campaign they are going for. I would like to ask however, how much additional Money it cost for the GOP congressional staffs to be covered on their health insurance for abortions. Apparently they don’t mind spending the money on THAT.
Schteve
@No. 3 · Robert, NYC, precisely. If money is what they care about, then they can save loads of it by not offering benefits to opposite-sex partners. If money isn’t what they care about, then stop using the cost as an argument against it.