Thanks so much, Brian. Really looking forward to seeing which ones perform.

Great work, and thanks for asking for feedback and/or volunteered designs and ideas.

A couple of thoughts that may help in some way:

1. In this recent diary, Dean Baker offered a very constructive suggestion, regarding refining Social Security’s COLA calculation, that people in Congress debating in good faith could promote as a compromise in lieu of the flawed chained-CPI idea that has been propounded by the Gang of Six:

However, we know that the elderly have different consumption patterns than the population as a whole. They spend a larger share of their income on health care and less on computers and cell phones. BLS research shows that the rate of inflation experienced by the elderly is actually somewhat higher than the standard index used to adjust Social Security benefits. This research implies that if we are interested in an accurate cost of living adjustment, as the Gang of Six claim, then we might have to increase, rather than decrease, the annual adjustment.

The elderly cost of living index that shows they experience a higher rate of inflation is an experimental index, not a full price index like the other indexes calculated by BLS. However, it could be a full index if the Gang of Six and the rest of Congress wanted it to be. In other words, if the Gang of Six is really interested in a more accurate cost of living adjustment for Social Security, they can propose legislation that would direct BLS to construct a full elderly index. This would let them know whether it is necessary to raise, lower, or leave alone the annual cost of living adjustment, to ensure that Social Security checks keep pace with the cost of living.

2. In a C-SPAN Washington Journal appearance Friday morning (7/22), Republican Senator Tom Coburn wholeheartedly agreed with a Democratic caller’s proposal that Congress and the President formally decouple (de-”unify”) Social Security and other self-funded trust funds from the rest of the federal budget – reversing the “unified” federal budget that LBJ fostered to help finance the Vietnam War with a minimum of (short-term) pain.

Though it’s been an insidiously-hidden redistribution of tax burdens, we should keep in mind the threat that the “unified” federal budget is now posing to the Social Security program, after having used (“borrowed”) surplus Social Security funds, raised by a regressive FICA tax, to finance the annual operating budgets of the federal government for years or decades. One result of that short-term-driven practice is that there’s now (or soon will be) a growing gap between revenue and expenditures at the federal level that can no longer be significantly eased by surplus trust fund money – and yet, one of the first places where some in Congress (and, obviously, the President, when left to his own backroom devices) want to look to cover that gap is to the same low/lower-income people whose FICA taxes have been helping to fund general government operations (without public credit, if nominally with future earned interest from…someone), even as the wealthiest reaped tax cuts, generous tax deductions and credits, off-shore tax havens, a cap on their FICA taxes, and lower rates on income from investments than are applied to income from wages.

One way that important point might be made to work in this or other ad campaigns could be to ask:

“Paycheck-raised FICA [Social Security] funds were loaned to finance general government operations. Should Congress ask you to pay the interest on those loans?”

Or: “Should you be asked to repay FICA [Social Security] surpluses loaned to finance general government expenses?”

Or: “Should you be asked to pay interest on Social Security surpluses loaned to finance general government expenses?”

Or: “Social Security surpluses were used for non-Social Security expenses. Who should Congress [the President] ask to pay interest on those loans?”

Or: “Should Congress [the President] ask you to pay back Social Security contributions spent on non-Social Security expenses?”

Etc.

It seems only fair (and in keeping with our nominally-”progressive” tax code) that an effort be made by Congress to raise at least the amount of interest owed, on the Social Security Trust Fund loans to the rest of the government, from the tax bracket(s) of those above the poverty level who, as a proportion of their income, paid the least into the Social Security Trust Fund over the years. [And wouldn't applying FICA taxes to some amount of income above the current cap of $106,000 do this, to one degree or another?]