Stealth entitlement engineering

Policymakers and parties use low‑visibility administrative rules, indexing formulas, and bipartisan statutory tweaks to make entitlements effectively more generous without major public debate. These small, widely dispersed technical changes (COLA floors, benefit reclassifications, tax carve‑outs) accumulate into measurable redistributive shifts that are politically durable because they evade normal electoral scrutiny. — If true, this reframes fiscal and electoral politics: electoral gains can be secured by ‘engineering’ benefits through technical procedures, making transparency and procedural safeguards central to democratic accountability over redistribution.