Yesterday in Boston, 15 Massachusetts residents represented by Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders filed suit against the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration and other federal agencies, challenging the constitutionality of the federal government’s decision not to recognize their marriages.

In 1996, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act. The act has two substantive sections: Section 2 reinforces a state’s right not to recognize another state’s same-sex marriage, while Section 3 denies federal recognition of marriages between couples of the same sex. The law marked the first time the federal government overruled state determinations of marriage.

When passed, the law did not tangibly affect anyone, because no state issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Today, however, there are more than 10,000 married same-sex couples in Massachusetts alone, with many more in Connecticut and New York — all of whose marriages are entirely valid and unquestioned under state law. Another 18,000 couples were married in California, and their marriages are currently under review by the California Supreme Court in the wake of Proposition 8.

A new study by the Center for American Progress finds that a same-sex couple with average characteristics will be denied more than $8,000 in Social Security spousal survivor benefits because the federal government doesn’t acknowledge their marriage. After paying a lifetime of payroll taxes into a system that is supposed to provide retirement benefits for married couples, same-sex couples who marry are denied thousands of dollars in Social Security retirement benefits, survivor benefits, and lump-sum death benefits, simply because they are married to a person of the same sex.

The Social Security benefits we analyzed are only one of hundreds of federal privileges and benefits extended to opposite-sex married couples but denied to legally married same-sex couples. A 2004 report by the Government Accountability Office found “1,138 federal statutory provisions classified to the United States Code in which marital status is a factor in determining or receiving benefits, rights, and privileges.”

At a time when more and more families are struggling to pay their bills, this discrimination is depriving couples of vital benefits in retirement and financial protections in the wake of a tragic loss of a loved one. That’s not pro-family, that’s not good economics, and it’s just plain wrong.

Read the full study here.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal editorial board launched a broadside against the Obama administration’s economic plans, ludicrously asserting that “after five weeks in office, it’s become clear that Mr. Obama’s policies are slowing, if not stopping” economic recovery. Furthermore, the Journal claimed that Obama’s budget was “a declaration of hostility toward capitalists” that caused the stock market to dive, because of its proposed tax increases on the wealthy and corporations.

Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag appeared on CNBC today to fire back at the Journal:

I think the criticism is just wrong. I don’t think capitalism is founded on the theory that the only thing that drives economic performance is the top marginal tax rate or the right way of promoting competition is to funnel billions and billions of dollars to corporations.

Watch it:

As Ben Armbruster pointed out yesterday, the theory that Obama’s budget caused stocks to sink “carries little weight,” as the market peaked in October 2007 and has been falling ever since. Investors are reacting to dismal earnings projections and record losses from companies across the board.

And Orszag is absolutely right that economic performance depends on a lot more than the top tax rate. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities noted that, even with Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, “growth rates of GDP, investment, and other key economic indicators during the 2001-2007 expansion were below the average for other post-World War II economic expansions.” The Bush economy “registered the weakest jobs and income growth in the post-war period,” and “household income growth was negative for the first cycle since tracking began in 1967.”

In the end, a market-centric approach gives an extremely limited view of how well policies are working. Investors would probably love it if Obama announced that he was going to exchange dump trucks full of money for all of Wall St.’s toxic assets and the markets would shoot up accordingly. Does that make it good policy? Clearly not. There has to be a balance between Wall St.’s interest and the public interest, and as this crisis has shown us, those interests can be wildly at odds with each other.