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Re: Hamilton Political Debate

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2016 5:45 pm
by Batgirl III
Spectrum wrote:What is your 'win' condition? What makes things 'right'?
270+ votes in the Electoral College; Which are fairly won according to the federal election laws of the United States and the election laws of the individual states.
Spectrum wrote:What will other people have to do (give up) in order to get you there?
Absolutely nothing.
Spectrum wrote:How will you make them change?
I won't.

Re: Hamilton Political Debate

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2016 6:01 pm
by Spectrum
Since the tax rate for married couples is lower than singles, I'm curious on how allowing same sex marriages will change the budget for next year.

Edit: Then again, does same sex marriage become even more difficult given that there are now 36 (?) of them?

Re: Hamilton Political Debate

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2016 6:18 pm
by Batgirl III
Spectrum wrote:Since the tax rate for married couples is lower than singles, I'm curious on how allowing same sex marriages will change the budget for next year.
I don't think its going to have any significantly measurable effect.

A quick Google search led me to a Washington Post article that cited Gallup poll that estimated there were about 390,000 married same-sex couples in the country, and another 1.2 million adults living in a same-sex domestic partnerships. This was written before Obergefell v. Hodges was decided and the article estimates that Obergefell would lead to a big jump in same-sex marriages... Which seems a safe assumption.

Nevertheless, I think that its highly unlikely we'd see that many more same-sex marriages. I mean, there's only so many LGBT folks out there and the number of them that marry will never be 100%. So even if we're super liberal with our estimates as assume all existing same-sex domestic partnerships become marriages and the number of same-sex marriages doubles... You're looking at maybe one million marriages.

According to the statistics I can quickly find, number of married couples in the United States totaled some 59.63 million pairs in 2014. Adding another million couples to that is not a statistically significant shift.

On the other hand, it does remind me of a cartoon that the first attorney I ever worked for had taped to the fridge in the break room: Two men are talking to each other on the court house steps. "I can't wait for same-sex marriage to become legal." "I didn't know you were gay?" "I'm not. I'm a divorce lawyer."

Re: Hamilton Political Debate

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2016 6:20 pm
by Spectrum
I think that I saw a similar comment from Dolly Parton.