Vignette: Definition of Marriage
#5 of Notebook
"Cody, please? This is a big deal," begged the lion.
"You know I'll just get bored," insisted the fox.
"Trust me, you won't. C'mon." The lion was standing over their favorite armchair, TV remote in hand.
Cody smiled, and sat down, somewhat reluctantly, and the lion sat in his lap.
"Thank you," insisted the lion, and switched on a dry public affairs program in a muted hearing room.
Just as Cody was about to try and get up -- the lion could feel him shifting -- the microphone of the committee chair turned on. "This meeting is now in session," she stated. "This begins day three of testimony for consideration of bill 213, the Marriage Multiplication Act. Our guest today is Budget Analyst Patrick Nund --"
The lion smiled, and looked up at Cody as the camera cut to himself. "I wonder who that is," he teased.
"You got on TV!?" asked Cody in surprise.
"Shh! Don't you want to hear what I have to say?" whispered the lion back.
"And with that," continued the chairwoman, "I'll let you read your statement, Mr. Nund."
"Thank you, Madame Chair. Members of the committee, the proposed legislation may seem somewhat radical. Upon this issue, and its social benefits, I do not claim expertise. However, the matter of what it costs, central to the opposition, is where I base my testimony. Quite simply, this legislation's cost will be fairly minimal, because all of the largest costs will be statistically offset with equally large benefits. It is quite plausible that the net impact of the legislation will be positive."
A brief cut to the chairwoman showed she was listening just as intently as Cody thought she was at the time from his brief looks up and down at his notes.
"Currently, there are three key factors to determining if plural marriage will be a plausible--"
"Plural Marriage!?" gasped Cody.
"See? You should follow this stuff," whispered Patrick with a smile.
"-- are: an increase of federal costs currently incurred by all marriages; an increase in revenue for marriage related services, and an increase in the complexity of bureaucracy needed for dealing with the social structures around which marriage is built."
Patrick looked up, and was pleased to see Cody's eyes glued to the screen, with a faint smile on his face. He couldn't tell if Cody was really absorbing much or not.
"First, the federal issue. As you know, the Global Council subsists on two main types of surcharges from states: the per capita allotment, or "furson share", and the per product allotment, or "economic share." And as you know, the idea of marriage means that our government collects less from married couples, and must foot the difference to the Council out of other revenues. The question here is: what would the effect be if a significant number of additional fursons got married -- in this case, to more than one other furson?
"The answer is, not much at all. If income taxes are reformed to make 'married' status a deduction rather than an averaging of incomes, it is possible to make the current level of benefits provided work in the new arrangement without anything but a one-time headache. The amount of difference is so small, in addition, that to fall short by one entire furson's worth of share, just over 18% of singles would have to get married. And sociologists believe this is most unlikely, as they have testified.
"Second, the marriage industry growth. Aside from the number of supporters there are in the industry, the numbers suggest that, unlike taxes, marrying two different fursons results in a nearly 90% increase, on average, in wedding services. This is because of how many marriages would happen over time, and would mean the entire wedding shebang all over again for the third partner. Ideas vary, however, and you are free to ask the sociologists about that as well.
"Finally, the complexity of social services and licensing. This is mostly a wash if implemented properly. Similar to the marriage exemption, all that is needed is to have single individual selection; that is, change 'partner' to 'one of the partners' on life insurance, chain of inheritance, medical contact forms, living wills, and so forth. A similar thing could be done with benefits: secondary beneficiaries would simply go to one of the spouses, not all, as others have feared.
"So, in conclusion, I believe this bill is a sound budget proposal, that would be a wash at worst, and a small boom at best. I would encourage the commitee to take the model of one-other-spouse for all legal entitlements and duties, to ease this transition, and avoid incurring larger costs. I now am ready for your questions."
Patrick muted the TV set. "Now you can't tell me that was too weedy."
Cody was still smiling. "You were wonderful, Hon! I got it!" He kissed the lion on the nose.
And the TV turned off not long after that, so the rest of their evening could begin.