We also need to keep in mind that, even without accounting for market fluctuations, obviously the tax incentive is going to give people more buying power in cities with lower costs of living, like Oklahoma City, than high-COL cities like New York or Los Angeles. So a county-by-county index might be something to consider as well. That $3K or $6K is going to help everyone regardless, but once we start getting into the more expensive places (which are mostly the ones that have more job opportunities and therefore draw more people in) the benefits have a progressively smaller impact.
If we have run into problems codifying this all into the bill, then I think that a fixed rate of $10,000 for individuals and $20,000 for couples would be a fair route. Or perhaps something like $12,500 for individuals and $25,000 for couples.
How would we go about a county-by-county index? I originally thought maybe having just a simple function that scales the COL and potential benefits but that could lead to a similar situation as before where the COL decreases and may lock people out of benefits they thought they had.
I get what you're saying and I agree, it's just hard to find a way to make this work near-perfectly.
Yeah, the problem is likely that we would need to hand those decisions to the bureaucracy, because obviously we can't set a fixed rate for every county in the nation.
But that would also lead to budget problems.
Sometimes you just have to say a certain level of complexity is beyond the practical realities of the game and just take some things for granted.