{ "_readme": "GENERATED from data/policy-perimeter.ts — do not edit by hand. NOT MODEL INPUT: nothing in the scoring path reads it. This records where the Accord's public guarantee STOPS and why, which is the question critics ask and the boundary scope creep erodes first.", "principle": "The Accord guarantees essential capabilities and invests where collective action produces unusually high returns. It does not attempt to make every useful good free. The perimeter is drawn by necessity, externality, return on investment, catastrophic-risk protection, administrative simplicity, federal competence, and displacement of costs Americans already bear. Benefits outside the perimeter remain private, supplemental, state or local, or candidates for later inclusion when evidence justifies moving the boundary.", "counts": { "total": 23, "IN": 7, "PARTIAL": 1, "FRINGE_EVALUABLE": 5, "OUT_BY_DESIGN": 9, "UNRESOLVED": 1 }, "items": [ { "id": "HEALTH-DENTAL-PREVENTION", "domain": "healthcare", "name": "Preventive dental and emergency extraction", "status": "IN", "boundary": "Cleanings, exams and emergency extraction, all ages.", "logic": "Prevention is the cheapest point in the dental cost curve and untreated decay reaches the emergency room as a medical cost the public already pays. Emergency extraction is included because the alternative is untreated pain, not a private purchase deferred.", "tests": [ "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR", "HIGH_RETURN", "DISPLACEMENT" ], "changeHistory": [], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "inside the DH floor basis", "displaces": "household out-of-pocket dental and ER dental visits", "inducedNewUse": "material — unmet dental need is large", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "avoidedMedicalCost", "futureEarnings" ], "summary": "Prevention avoids restorative and emergency cost downstream.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "canon healthcare floor; data/healthcare-bottom-up.ts" }, { "id": "HEALTH-DENTAL-FILLINGS", "domain": "healthcare", "name": "Basic restorative dental — fillings", "status": "IN", "boundary": "Fillings at the reference price, all ages, on top of prevention and emergency extraction already inside the floor.", "logic": "Ruled in 2026-08-08. A filling is the intervention that keeps a tooth; the supplemental tier begins where treatment becomes reconstruction. THE MARGINAL COST WAS ISOLATED rather than adding the whole dental floor as a 'move', which would have counted prevention twice — the same double-count discipline the fiscal audit applies elsewhere.", "tests": [ "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR", "HIGH_RETURN", "DISPLACEMENT" ], "changeHistory": [ { "date": "2026-08-08", "from": "FRINGE_EVALUABLE", "to": "IN", "reason": "high prevention value; marginal cost isolated; children prioritised under the capacity constraint", "authority": "BILL 2026-08-08" } ], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "the isolated marginal cost of fillings only", "displaces": "household out-of-pocket restorative dental", "inducedNewUse": "material", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "avoidedMedicalCost", "avoidedDisability", "futureEarnings" ], "summary": "Preserves the tooth and forestalls extraction and prosthodontics.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "data/healthcare-bottom-up.ts — 'Basic restorative dental'" }, { "id": "HEALTH-DENTAL-ENDO-CROWN", "domain": "healthcare", "name": "Endodontics and crowns", "status": "FRINGE_EVALUABLE", "boundary": "Root canals, crowns — supplemental today.", "logic": "The nearest fringe item to the current line. A root canal preserves a tooth the floor already paid to fill, so excluding it may be buying the cheap half of a treatment path and stopping. The question is where tooth preservation stops returning more than it costs, and that is a cost/benefit question rather than a philosophical one.", "tests": [ "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR", "HIGH_RETURN", "DISPLACEMENT" ], "changeHistory": [], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "DERIVATION_OWED", "displaces": "substantial household and supplemental-plan spending", "inducedNewUse": "DERIVATION_OWED", "confidence": "DERIVATION_OWED" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "avoidedMedicalCost", "avoidedDisability" ], "summary": "Tooth preservation against the downstream extraction and prosthodontic path the floor would otherwise reach later.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "DERIVATION_OWED" }, "conditionsToReopen": "a marginal-cost isolation of the same kind done for fillings, plus dentist-supply capacity evidence", "source": "data/healthcare-bottom-up.ts basis note" }, { "id": "HEALTH-DENTAL-PROSTHODONTICS", "domain": "healthcare", "name": "Dentures and basic prosthodontics", "status": "FRINGE_EVALUABLE", "boundary": "Dentures, partials, implants — supplemental today.", "logic": "Distinct from crowns because the argument is nutritional and employability rather than tooth preservation. Edentulism changes what a person can eat and how they present for work. Implants sit further out than dentures on cost per functional gain.", "tests": [ "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR", "HIGH_RETURN" ], "changeHistory": [], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "DERIVATION_OWED", "displaces": "household spending, concentrated in older households", "inducedNewUse": "DERIVATION_OWED", "confidence": "DERIVATION_OWED" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "futureEarnings", "avoidedMedicalCost" ], "summary": "Nutrition and employability, weakest on implants.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "DERIVATION_OWED" }, "conditionsToReopen": "an edentulism-prevalence and cost estimate, and a decision on whether dentures and implants separate — they differ by roughly an order of magnitude in cost per functional gain and should not move as one item", "source": "data/healthcare-bottom-up.ts basis note" }, { "id": "HEALTH-DENTAL-COSMETIC", "domain": "healthcare", "name": "Cosmetic dentistry", "status": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "boundary": "Whitening, veneers, elective aesthetic work.", "logic": "The governing distinction across the whole healthcare perimeter is health and functional capacity versus consumption preference. Cosmetic work is the clearest case on the consumption side, and including it would make the floor indefensible at every other boundary.", "tests": [ "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR" ], "exclusionReasons": [ "PRIVATE_CONSUMPTION", "NONESSENTIAL_AMENITY" ], "changeHistory": [], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "NOT_MATERIAL to the decision", "displaces": "nothing the public bears", "inducedNewUse": "n/a", "confidence": "NOT_MATERIAL" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [], "summary": "No public return claimed.", "accruesTo": "household", "confidence": "NOT_MATERIAL" }, "source": "data/healthcare-bottom-up.ts basis note" }, { "id": "HEALTH-VISION-HEARING", "domain": "healthcare", "name": "Vision hardware, exams and hearing devices", "status": "PARTIAL", "boundary": "Exams, defined low-tier hardware and hearing devices at a reference level are in; premium hardware is supplemental.", "logic": "A reference-price floor buys the function — seeing, hearing — and leaves the appearance and convenience tiers private. That is the same shape as the Medigap boundary: financial and convenience differences above a common clinical floor.", "tests": [ "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR", "HIGH_RETURN", "DISPLACEMENT" ], "changeHistory": [], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "inside the ruled floor moves", "displaces": "household hardware spending", "inducedNewUse": "material — unmet need is large in older cohorts", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "laborForceParticipation", "avoidedDisability", "reducedCrime" ], "summary": "Hearing loss is associated with isolation and cognitive decline; vision correction is a direct work and driving input.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "data/healthcare-bottom-up.ts floor moves" }, { "id": "LTC-POST-ACUTE", "domain": "eldercare", "name": "Skilled post-acute care, home health, hospice", "status": "IN", "boundary": "Medicare-covered skilled nursing, home health, hospice and palliative care transition with the health benefit.", "logic": "These are medical services with a defined clinical endpoint, not open-ended personal assistance. Hospice was named in the floor in 2026-08-11 after being absent from the benefit LANGUAGE while Medicare Part A had always covered it — an omission in wording, not a missing cost.", "tests": [ "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR", "MARKET_FAILURE", "DISPLACEMENT" ], "changeHistory": [ { "date": "2026-08-11", "from": "UNRESOLVED", "to": "IN", "reason": "hospice named explicitly in the floor; CMS already embeds it inside NHEA home health, so no separate cost line is added", "authority": "BILL 2026-08-11" } ], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "inside the DH floor", "displaces": "Medicare post-acute spending, folded on schedule", "inducedNewUse": "modest", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "avoidedMedicalCost", "caregiverLaborRelease" ], "summary": "Prevents readmission and unpaid family care substitution.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "canon healthcare floor" }, { "id": "LTC-CUSTODIAL", "domain": "eldercare", "name": "Prolonged custodial long-term care", "status": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "boundary": "Prolonged custodial care and broad nonmedical personal assistance are not a federal DH entitlement. The floor is no more generous than today's Medicare.", "logic": "Ruled 2026-08-20: Distributed Healthcare creates NO new long-term care programme or funding stream. Existing Medicaid, VA, state, private and household LTC spending stays outside DH. The Accord is an efficiency, cost-saving and investment architecture — most especially investment in children — not a welfare programme.", "tests": [ "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR", "FEDERALISM" ], "exclusionReasons": [ "UNSUSTAINABLE_OPEN_ENDED_ENTITLEMENT", "FEDERALISM", "MORAL_HAZARD" ], "changeHistory": [ { "date": "2026-08-20", "from": "UNRESOLVED", "to": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "reason": "no new LTC programme; Medicare-equivalent floor. The single drifted registry line listing 'long-term care' in the floor had licensed an unratified custodial scalar", "authority": "BILL 2026-08-20" } ], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "excluded by ruling", "displaces": "n/a", "inducedNewUse": "n/a", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "caregiverLaborRelease" ], "summary": "Real, but the instrument would socialise every hour of ordinary assistance to reach it.", "accruesTo": "household", "confidence": "DERIVATION_OWED" }, "source": "CLAUDE.md LTC canon 2026-08-20" }, { "id": "LTC-CATASTROPHIC", "domain": "eldercare", "name": "Catastrophic long-term-care protection", "status": "FRINGE_EVALUABLE", "boundary": "A federal stop-loss against ruinous custodial cost, distinct from paying for ordinary assistance.", "logic": "The most attractive shape in this domain precisely because it is NOT free custodial care. Catastrophic dependency is a classic uninsurable tail risk — private LTC insurance markets are thin for exactly the adverse-selection reasons that justify public provision — while ordinary lifetime consumption is not automatically a federal obligation. It protects families against ruin without socialising every hour.", "tests": [ "MARKET_FAILURE", "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR", "SIMPLICITY" ], "changeHistory": [], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "DERIVATION_OWED", "displaces": "household asset spend-down and the Medicaid LTSS pathway that spend-down currently leads to", "inducedNewUse": "DERIVATION_OWED", "confidence": "DERIVATION_OWED" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "catastropheInsuranceValue", "caregiverLaborRelease" ], "summary": "Insurance value against a tail the private market prices badly, plus released caregiver labour.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "DERIVATION_OWED" }, "conditionsToReopen": "a specified trigger, duration cap, reference price and contribution ladder — none of which exists today", "source": "advisor 2026-08-26; no ruling exists" }, { "id": "LTC-NURSING-SCALAR", "domain": "eldercare", "name": "The nursing / continuing-care floor share", "status": "UNRESOLVED", "boundary": "A partial nursing-care share sits in the cost model without an eligibility, duration, cap, reference price or contribution schedule ratifying what benefit it represents.", "logic": "A COST PARAMETER WITHOUT A BENEFIT DEFINITION. The 2026-08-20 ruling retired its benefit architecture — catastrophic protection plus a capped ladder with an income-related contribution — while the scalar survived as a cost input. That is a legitimate way to hold a number, and it is not a specified benefit, and the registry says so rather than letting the scalar imply one.", "tests": [ "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR" ], "changeHistory": [ { "date": "2026-08-20", "from": "PARTIAL", "to": "UNRESOLVED", "reason": "benefit architecture retired as a benefit definition; the scalar survives as a cost parameter only, with its Medicare-equivalent derivation owed", "authority": "BILL 2026-08-20" } ], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "in the model as a scalar", "displaces": "unclear until the benefit is specified", "inducedNewUse": "unclear", "confidence": "DERIVATION_OWED" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [], "summary": "Cannot be stated until the benefit is.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "DERIVATION_OWED" }, "conditionsToReopen": "the CMS NHE payer cross-tab derivation that is owed", "source": "CLAUDE.md LTC canon; healthcare cost model" }, { "id": "CHILDCARE-0-5", "domain": "childcare", "name": "Childcare ages 0-5, including the Pre-K window", "status": "IN", "boundary": "Ages 0-5 on a 50/25/25 Accord / employer-or-host / family split, mixed delivery, no separate federal Pre-K programme.", "logic": "Childcare is treated as infrastructure for families rather than a benefit conditional on poverty, which is why it has no means test. The Pre-K window sits inside the same rail because a separate federal programme would duplicate delivery already being built.", "tests": [ "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR", "HIGH_RETURN", "SIMPLICITY", "DISPLACEMENT" ], "changeHistory": [], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "the Accord operating share plus capacity build", "displaces": "household childcare bills — the family share is 25%", "inducedNewUse": "large: the slot gap is roughly 4.2M", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "laborForceParticipation", "childDevelopment", "futureEarnings" ], "summary": "Capability Core evidence returns $4-7 per $1 over a lifetime. That band applies to this slice specifically and NOT to the whole Accord package.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "CLAUDE.md Childcare Plan canon" }, { "id": "CHILDCARE-AFTERSCHOOL", "domain": "childcare", "name": "After-school and summer care, ages 6-12", "status": "FRINGE_EVALUABLE", "boundary": "Outside today. The guarantee stops at age 5.", "logic": "THE STRONGEST FRINGE CANDIDATE IN THIS DOMAIN, because the 0-5 cutoff is administratively clean but does not coincide with the end of the parental childcare constraint. A school day is shorter than a work day and a school year is shorter than a work year, so the constraint the programme exists to relieve persists past the boundary the programme stops at.", "tests": [ "HIGH_RETURN", "DISPLACEMENT", "SIMPLICITY" ], "changeHistory": [], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "DERIVATION_OWED", "displaces": "household after-school and summer-camp spending, which is substantial and highly visible to parents", "inducedNewUse": "DERIVATION_OWED", "confidence": "DERIVATION_OWED" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "laborForceParticipation", "futureEarnings", "childDevelopment" ], "summary": "Mostly parental work hours and job continuity; the child-development return is likely smaller than for ages 0-5.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "DERIVATION_OWED" }, "conditionsToReopen": "a slot-gap and cost estimate for 6-12, and whether delivery rides the existing rail or needs a new one", "source": "advisor 2026-08-26; no ruling exists" }, { "id": "CHILDCARE-FEDERAL-PREK", "domain": "childcare", "name": "A separate federal universal Pre-K programme", "status": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "boundary": "Pre-K is delivered inside the childcare rail, not beside it.", "logic": "A second federal programme covering ages the childcare rail already covers would duplicate delivery, create a second eligibility surface, and put federal administration where a rail already exists. Federal curriculum control and teacher wage-setting are separately out on federalism grounds.", "tests": [ "SIMPLICITY", "FEDERALISM" ], "exclusionReasons": [ "DUPLICATIVE", "FEDERALISM", "BETTER_MECHANISM_EXISTS" ], "changeHistory": [], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "avoided", "displaces": "n/a", "inducedNewUse": "n/a", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [], "summary": "The return is captured by the rail.", "accruesTo": "society", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "source": "CLAUDE.md — 'Pre-K is NOT a separate program'" }, { "id": "EDU-SKILLS-WALLET", "domain": "education", "name": "Skills Wallet", "status": "IN", "boundary": "$1,000/yr accrual from birth, $20,000 lifetime cap, forfeit at 55. Flat — no multiplier of any kind.", "logic": "Human-capital capital that exists BEFORE displacement rather than after it. The flatness is deliberate: countercyclical or industry-specific multipliers were retired because they create edge cases and timing games.", "tests": [ "HIGH_RETURN", "SIMPLICITY" ], "changeHistory": [ { "date": "2026-05-14", "from": "IN", "to": "IN", "reason": "acceleration and doubling mechanisms deprecated; the wallet is a flat accrual with no countercyclical multiplier", "authority": "v10.4 canon" } ], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "in the model", "displaces": "some private training and tuition spending", "inducedNewUse": "material", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "futureEarnings", "educationalAttainment", "geographicMobility" ], "summary": "Retraining capacity held in advance of need.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "CLAUDE.md Skills Wallet canon" }, { "id": "EDU-FREE-COLLEGE", "domain": "education", "name": "Free university for everyone", "status": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "boundary": "No universal federal tuition payment.", "logic": "Fund human capital, not credentials as consumption goods. A universal tuition subsidy is poorly targeted — it transfers substantially to households with high lifetime income — and the link between an incremental subsidy dollar and incremental human capital is weak. The Skills Wallet is the better-targeted mechanism and it already exists.", "tests": [ "HIGH_RETURN", "FEDERALISM" ], "exclusionReasons": [ "POOR_TARGETING", "REGRESSIVE", "BETTER_MECHANISM_EXISTS", "PRICE_CAPITALIZATION" ], "changeHistory": [], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "very large", "displaces": "substantial private tuition spending, concentrated in higher-income households", "inducedNewUse": "enrolment response plus tuition capitalisation", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "futureEarnings" ], "summary": "Weak at the margin, and much of it captured by price.", "accruesTo": "household", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "Accord philosophy; Skills Wallet architecture" }, { "id": "EDU-TEACHER-PAY", "domain": "education", "name": "Federal early-education teacher pay", "status": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "boundary": "The Accord gets children to school. It does not set early-education salaries.", "logic": "RULED 2026-07-27, and the reasoning generalises: a strong ROI finding is never authorisation for the nearest instrument. Pay STRUCTURE rather than level explains the decline, no consensus effectiveness measure exists, and the federal share of the relevant spending is under 10%. The problem is real and not responsibly solvable from a federal position.", "tests": [ "FEDERALISM", "HIGH_RETURN" ], "exclusionReasons": [ "FEDERALISM", "BETTER_MECHANISM_EXISTS" ], "changeHistory": [ { "date": "2026-07-27", "from": "FRINGE_EVALUABLE", "to": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "reason": "state and marketplace issue; the Accord's contribution is getting the children to school", "authority": "BILL 2026-07-27" } ], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "avoided", "displaces": "n/a", "inducedNewUse": "n/a", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "childDevelopment" ], "summary": "Return is real; the instrument is not federal.", "accruesTo": "society", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "CLAUDE.md floor doctrine 2026-07-27" }, { "id": "HOUSING-SUPPLY-SIDE", "domain": "housing", "name": "Supply-side housing architecture", "status": "IN", "boundary": "Land-value surcharge, voluntary locality reform incentives, factory-built approval, standards and preapproval, COMPASS housing-gap investment.", "logic": "THE ORGANISING RULE FOR THIS WHOLE DOMAIN: do not subsidise bids for scarce housing; increase the supply and productive use of land. A demand subsidy into a constrained market raises the price of the existing stock and the subsidy is captured by owners.", "tests": [ "MARKET_FAILURE", "HIGH_RETURN", "FEDERALISM" ], "changeHistory": [ { "date": "2026-07-19", "from": "PARTIAL", "to": "IN", "reason": "zoning grant-conditionality and the penalty schedule deleted; locality supply reform is voluntary by design and claimable unit counts scale with adoption", "authority": "BILL 2026-07-19" } ], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "LVS is net revenue; investment is in the model", "displaces": "n/a", "inducedNewUse": "construction resources", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "housingSupply", "geographicMobility", "privateInvestmentCrowdIn" ], "summary": "Units liberated from speculative margins toward the target.", "accruesTo": "society", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "CLAUDE.md LVS and housing canon" }, { "id": "HOUSING-DEMAND-SUBSIDY", "domain": "housing", "name": "Mortgage interest deduction, §121, homebuyer credits", "status": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "boundary": "MID and §121 phase out on the LVS glide path and nothing replaces them. The First-Time Stability Credit is retired.", "logic": "These subsidise BIDS for a constrained stock, so they capitalise into price and transfer to existing owners. Retiring the Stability Credit also removed the last means-tested benefit in the corpus — home affordability is real but is not the Accord's problem to solve through a demand subsidy, and the LVS is the better instrument.", "tests": [ "HIGH_RETURN", "MARKET_FAILURE", "SIMPLICITY" ], "exclusionReasons": [ "PRICE_CAPITALIZATION", "REGRESSIVE", "BETTER_MECHANISM_EXISTS", "MEANS_TEST_BLOAT" ], "changeHistory": [ { "date": "2026-08-13", "from": "PARTIAL", "to": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "reason": "First-Time Stability Credit retired; nothing replaces the phased-out preferences", "authority": "BILL 2026-08-13" } ], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "negative — phase-out is revenue", "displaces": "n/a", "inducedNewUse": "n/a", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [], "summary": "Negative at the margin: the subsidy raises the price.", "accruesTo": "household", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "CLAUDE.md LVS canon; 2026-08-13 retirement" }, { "id": "HOUSING-FEDERAL-CONSTRUCTION", "domain": "housing", "name": "A federal housing-construction programme", "status": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "boundary": "No large-scale federal construction or ownership of housing, and no federal residential managed-retreat buyout programme.", "logic": "Siting, permitting and operation are local competences and the Accord's instrument is to remove the constraints rather than to become the builder. A $140B housing-construction line was removed from the engine in 2026-08-10 as a phantom obligation for a programme that does not exist — which is precisely why the exclusion is now written down.", "tests": [ "FEDERALISM", "SIMPLICITY" ], "exclusionReasons": [ "FEDERALISM", "CAPACITY_CONSTRAINT", "BETTER_MECHANISM_EXISTS" ], "changeHistory": [ { "date": "2026-08-10", "from": "UNRESOLVED", "to": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "reason": "the $140B housing-construction obligation was a scaffold phantom with no programme behind it; removed from the engine", "authority": "fiscal reset 2026-08-10" } ], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "avoided", "displaces": "n/a", "inducedNewUse": "n/a", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "housingSupply" ], "summary": "The supply-side architecture reaches the same target.", "accruesTo": "society", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "fiscal reset; CLAUDE.md climate canon on managed retreat" }, { "id": "HOUSING-SUPPORTIVE", "domain": "housing", "name": "Supportive housing and deep rental assistance", "status": "FRINGE_EVALUABLE", "boundary": "Homelessness-first supportive housing, extremely-low-income rental assistance, disabled and elderly housing.", "logic": "JUDGED DIFFERENTLY FROM GENERIC HOMEOWNER SUBSIDIES, and the distinction is the whole point: these address severe externalities and a population the private market does not serve at any price, rather than bidding up existing stock for people already housed.", "tests": [ "MARKET_FAILURE", "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR", "HIGH_RETURN" ], "changeHistory": [], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "DERIVATION_OWED", "displaces": "emergency shelter, emergency medical and criminal-justice costs the public already bears", "inducedNewUse": "DERIVATION_OWED", "confidence": "DERIVATION_OWED" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "avoidedMedicalCost", "reducedCrime", "externalityReduction" ], "summary": "Displacement is unusually high here — much of the cost is already being paid through emergency channels at worse unit prices.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "DERIVATION_OWED" }, "conditionsToReopen": "a displacement estimate against current emergency spending, which is the figure that decides whether this is new cost or cheaper cost", "source": "advisor 2026-08-26; no ruling exists" }, { "id": "INCOME-UCA", "domain": "income support", "name": "Universal Child Allowance", "status": "IN", "boundary": "Base by child rank, age curve, locale adjustment, phased 50/75/100 over three years. No acceleration mechanism of any kind.", "logic": "Universal by design so there is no eligibility surface to administer. Calibrated to reach a fraction of the poverty line rather than to generosity, because other instruments cover medical and related child costs.", "tests": [ "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR", "SIMPLICITY", "HIGH_RETURN" ], "changeHistory": [ { "date": "2026-07-03", "from": "IN", "to": "IN", "reason": "the acceleration trigger is DELETED — it was never authorised. Benefits are never amplified on a need reading", "authority": "BILL 2026-07-03" } ], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "in the model", "displaces": "the refundable CTC and the child share of EITC", "inducedNewUse": "material", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "childDevelopment", "laborForceParticipation" ], "summary": "Family Stability Floor evidence returns $1.5-2.5 per $1 — NOT the $4-7 band, which belongs to Capability Core only.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "CLAUDE.md UCA canon" }, { "id": "INCOME-OVERLAPPING-CREDITS", "domain": "income support", "name": "Restoring the CTC alongside the UCA", "status": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "boundary": "The UCA replaces the refundable CTC; they do not stack.", "logic": "Two instruments for the same purpose create two eligibility surfaces, two clawback schedules and two sets of forms, and the households least equipped to navigate them lose most. The objective is a universal floor with very low administrative burden, not overlapping microprograms.", "tests": [ "SIMPLICITY", "DISPLACEMENT" ], "exclusionReasons": [ "DUPLICATIVE", "MEANS_TEST_BLOAT" ], "changeHistory": [], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "avoided", "displaces": "the CTC is already displaced by the UCA", "inducedNewUse": "n/a", "confidence": "KNOWN" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "reducedAdministrativeCost" ], "summary": "The saving is the administration that never happens.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "data/other-mandatory-crosswalk.ts UCA replacement" }, { "id": "ADMIN-MEANS-TESTING", "domain": "administration", "name": "Means-tested benefit bureaucracy", "status": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "boundary": "No asset tests, recertification cycles, caseworker gatekeeping or income verification on floor benefits.", "logic": "THIS IS THE ARCHITECTURAL COMMITMENT UNDER MANY OF THE OTHER EXCLUSIONS. Administration consumes 5-15% of programme dollars in the current patchwork, and the burden falls hardest on the households least equipped to carry it. A benefit that arrives automatically has no eligibility surface to police, no error rate to litigate and no stigma to impose.", "tests": [ "SIMPLICITY", "ESSENTIAL_FLOOR" ], "exclusionReasons": [ "MEANS_TEST_BLOAT", "POOR_TARGETING" ], "changeHistory": [ { "date": "2026-08-13", "from": "PARTIAL", "to": "OUT_BY_DESIGN", "reason": "the First-Time Stability Credit was the last means-tested benefit in the corpus and was retired", "authority": "BILL 2026-08-13" } ], "fiscal": { "grossFederalCost": "avoided", "displaces": "existing federal and state eligibility administration", "inducedNewUse": "n/a", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "roi": { "mechanisms": [ "reducedAdministrativeCost" ], "summary": "5-15% of programme dollars in the architecture replaced.", "accruesTo": "mixed", "confidence": "ROUGH_BAND" }, "source": "CLAUDE.md; data/engines.ts on the current patchwork" } ] }