I do not want to derail this thread, especially since it is about the legalization of polyamorous marriages, but the issue of taxes and benefits to married individuals is somewhat relevant.
Well that is why taxes should be reduced and reformed to a flat tax rate, where all pay the same low rates.
A flat tax rate has been proven to mainly benefit those in higher tax brackets, since they only have to pay the low rate. That flat tax rate is a more cumbersome burden for those in lower tax brackets who see a higher percentage of their income being taxed relative to those in higher tax brackets. This raises obvious issues in fairness because the tax burden has been unfairly shifted toward the middle class and the poor, who are paying a higher percentage of their income due to the "low flat tax rate." Pragmatically, though it may be raised as a talking point, no Democrat or Republican who wants to see reelection will push for a flat tax rate on the federal level.
Abolish federal institutions that require large amounts of spending (education, healthcare, social security) and leave it up for the private sector.
The Department of Defense is the largest expenditure in terms of agencies in federal budget. No one is cutting that, obvious reasons.
As for the Department of Education, our public schools need federal standards and guidance to ensure that our students are competitive in the national and global marketplace. Furthermore, most children in this country attend public schools at free cost to their families and paid for with American dollars. All the private schools in this country can not meet that demand. There is also the matter of what happens to children whose families can not pay tuition as private schools. Should they been denied an education?
I would like to ask what you mean by healthcare, because there is no "Department of Healthcare." There is a Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the protection of American's health through essential agencies like the Centers for Disease Control, which prevents the spread of epidemics and pandemics (a task I do not see the private sector doing) and the Food and Drug Administration, which sets standards for and inspects the food and drugs you consume. It sets standards for our medical care nationwide. When it comes to keeping citizens, including you, healthy and safe, regulation helps.
As for Social Security, retirees pay into that system all of their lives, so they are entitled to the payments they collect after retirement. Abolishing that the Social Security Administration or even the Social Security system cheats them out of their hard-earned money as taxpayer. Surely you are against that.
If people can’t afford marriage ceremonies or children, they ought not have them. And if they do, and fall into poverty, that is their fault, not society’s, and we should not be expected by government compulsion to be paying for their faults.
Finally, married individuals pay most of the taxes in this country. Respectfully, to say if they "can’t afford marriage ceremonies or children, they ought not have them" as a presumably single person is extremely easy. They are paying their fair share of the tax burden, if not more so. It is not unreasonable to extend them tax deductions, especially since, from a fiscal standpoint, it allows them to pay taxes in the first place. We were talking about Mormons earlier in the thread, so I decided to use a Mormon newspaper as a source, though they cite Pew Research:
www.deseretnews.com: Why do married people pay most of the taxes in the U.S.?
