It’s not always a popular thing to say, but marriage is a good thing that we need more of. Gov. Mike Braun (R-IN) is commemorating Tax Day with an executive order that aims to promote marriage in Indiana by getting the government out of the way.
Defending marriage these days means making some enemies. When economist Melissa Kearney published a book arguing that all economic data demonstrate that marriage is good for children, she was attacked consistently by the liberal commentariat. When I once tweeted that fatherlessness might contribute to gun crimes, I got piled on by liberal journalists and Democratic operatives.
Elite opinion holds that we are supposed to move beyond the idea of marriage.
Braun doesn’t see it that way. He sees that marriage is a social good — it benefits not only the children and the couple but the whole of society.
With marriage rates and birth rates at record lows, family formation deserves the attention of our political leaders. There’s a healthy debate over whether governments can and should really push people to get married (community and civil society are the better agents for that), but government shouldn’t get in the way.
That’s why Braun issued this new executive order, instructing the state’s revenue department to find all marriage penalties in Indiana’s tax laws, and instructing the state’s various welfare offices to find marriage penalties in state aid programs.
Federal welfare programs have famously created disincentives to marry, and surely many state programs do as well.
Every state should look into marriage penalties in their tax code and welfare systems.
After that, they should look at the various state functions they carry out and ask how these functions can be more family friendly. I believe that states, counties, and cities should spend money and time making neighborhoods more walkable and bikable for children, which will liberate children and thus liberate parents — and it could boost family size.
Also, states should scrap all excessive regulations that interfere with home building — particularly the building of affordable family homes, such as duplexes with yards or townhouses.
Families are good. Families only happen when people get married. So our political leaders should, like Gov. Mike Braun, try to make marriage a bit easier.
