Social Security

[Mursilis]

[/color]

Here social security is one of the greatest sucesses of the brief flirtation the United States had with liberal rule. From 1933-1968 with a few notable gaps ( Eisenhower, and Kennedy).... Social Security is perhaps the greatest American government program ever. It's benifited more people than any other in dramatic fashion, and basically has run a financial surplus for about 80 years until 2011.

You have to wonder why it's mandatory then. If it is so great, why does the gov't have to compel people to be part of it? You'd think they'd just allow people to opt in.

[JMS]

You have to wonder why it's mandatory then. If it is so great, why does the gov't have to compel people to be part of it? You'd think they'd just allow people to opt in.

Yes that's how I would judge greatness, in the ability the service gives people to opt out...

Roman Empire... if it were so great why didn't the Carthaginians and Briton's not want to join freely... sheesh...

Hell, if Hitler was such a bad guy... why was it mandatory for folks to pay taxes in an effort to defeat him?

The United States, not that great a country... Taxes have always been manditory here and not up to the individual.

Walking on the moon,,, You know the average Joe on the street was required to fund that thing

Don't even get me started on the Great Wall of China.... Let's just call it a Wall in China... ok..

Alexander the Great... Where is the personal choice there?

The great Pyramid in Giza?

If you are going to solve a national crisis, you have to have the nation as a whole participating in the solution.

[Popeman38]

Here social security is one of the greatest successes of the brief flirtation the United States had with liberal rule. From 1933-1968 with a few notable gaps ( Eisenhower, and Kennedy).... Social Security is perhaps the greatest American government program ever. It's benefited more people than any other in dramatic fashion, and basically has run a financial surplus for about 80 years until 2011.

It showed the country in dramatic fashion what the government could do when well run, and properly motivated. And the conservatives have always hated that.

So your point is that when the govt was taking in more than it was paying out in SS, and borrowing against it to cover other expenses, illustrates how efficient our govt can be when motivated? If SS was to demand repayment, with interest, of all the T-bills it has, the country would literally be bankrupt. And that illustrates a successful govt? Your high...

[Mursilis]

Yes that's how I would judge greatness. Whether it's mandatory or not...

Roman Empire... if it were so great why didn't the Carthaginians and Briton's not want to join freely... sheesh...

Hell, if Hitler was such a bad guy... why was it mandatory for folks to pay taxes in an effort to defeat him?

Walking on the moon,,, You know the average Joe on the street was required to fund that thing

Don't even get me started on the Great Wall of China.... Let's just call it a Wall in China... ok..

Read the U.S. Supreme Court case of Flemming v. Nestor, which states that you've got no contractual right to SS benefits even if you've paid into the system for years, and tell me again how great SS is.

[Homercles82]

Did your history professor also tell you that the folks who initially recieved social security payments had never paid into the system? That for them it was basically a gift? Or that when Social Security was established 80% of the elderly lived in poverty and that social security was responsible for lifting the majority of those folks out of poverty?

But who cares... Seriously why is that even relivant...

Yes, he did, but as you said, it isn't relevant so I am not sure why you brought it up in the first place.

Larry, thank you for the post. Excellent points made.

[Mursilis]

Or that when Social Security was established 80% of the elderly lived in poverty and that social security was responsible for lifting the majority of those folks out of poverty?

Got a link for that stat?

[JMS]

So your point is that when the govt was taking in more than it was paying out in SS, and borrowing against it to cover other expenses, illustrates how efficient our govt can be when motivated? If SS was to demand repayment, with interest, of all the T-bills it has, the country would literally be bankrupt. And that illustrates a successful govt? Your high...

That's exactly what I'm talking about. If that is your standard then you have a pretty tough standard.

90% or more of all homeowners would very likely be bankrupt if their entire note became due at once. The entire rational behind credit is not judged upon the immediate and unplanned repayment of the debt. But conservatives would have us believe this is the way we should look at our national finances. As a first grader would look as his piggy bank....

And to be honest. The federal governments propensity to borrow the surpluss the social security system generated for 80 years is unrelated to the merits of social security program. Also this propensity was not a liberal or conservative policy because both parties did it. Only the Republicans did it much more because they are the ones which rang up the vast majority of the nations' 14 trillion dollar debt.

[Homercles82]

Got a link for that stat?

He is off by 30% according to Wikipedia but the link for the citation is dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)#History

[Mursilis]

The federal governments propensity to borrow the surpluss the social security system generated for 80 years is unrelated to the merits of social security program. Also this propensity was not a liberal or conservative policy because both parties did it. Only the Republicans did it much more because they are the ones which rang up the vast majority of the nations' 14 trillion dollar debt.

Got a link for that stat?

---------- Post added March-28th-2011 at 11:38 AM ----------

He is off by 30% according to Wikipedia but the link for the citation is dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)#History

Thanks for that. At least someone in this thread isn't just making things up as they go along. I'd say being off by at least 30% is significant. I also note that that 50% rate (according to Wikipedia) was during the Great Depression, when plenty of people, not just seniors, weren't doing that well.

[deejaydana]

The problems as they stand with Social Security is working from actuarial tables that were set up in the 1930's. For one, they were never planned to be something a person would draw for 20to 30 years. Life expectancy is much greater now then it was then. The changes needed are relatively minor. I do laugh that liberals think there is some hidden stash of money available for this program. There is no money. The much, much larger entitlement with dire problems is Medicare anyway.

[Mursilis]

Double-post deleted.

[JMS]

What I said:

that when Social Security was established 80% of the elderly lived in poverty and that social security was responsible for lifting the majority of those folks out of poverty?

Got a link for that stat?

today social security payments keep about 50% of all Americans 65 years or older above the poverty line.

■Leaving aside Social Security income, nearly one of every two elderly people — 46.8 percent — has income below the poverty line

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1111#_ftn1

But in 1935 the year Social Security was first deployed the poverty rate for the nation's elderly was 70-90%..... So I settled on 80%, My quote comes from a politifact article which I read a few years back.

"Congressman Johnson, " "In 1935, more than 50% of the elderly population lived in poverty. Today that poverty rate stands officially at 9.4%." ( Note Congressman Johnson's numbers were wrong by Politico's analysis.)

PolitiFact's Analysis:

in 2008 -- the latest year for which data are available -- was % of elderly poverty was at 9.7 percent. That's pretty close to the figure that Johnson cited.

We talked to some of the top researchers in this field, and they all agreed: the best estimates show that the elderly poverty rate in 1935 was probably somewhere in the range of 70 to 90 percent.

"Congressman Johnson's" estimates indicate that Johnson may have seriously underestimated the level of poverty for older Americans amid the Great Depression.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/aug/17/eddie-bernice-johnson/texas-congresswoman-eddie-bernice-johnson-says-soc/

---------- Post added March-28th-2011 at 11:56 AM ----------

Thanks for that. At least someone in this thread isn't just making things up as they go along. I'd say being off by at least 30% is significant. I also note that that 50% rate (according to Wikipedia) was during the Great Depression, when plenty of people, not just seniors, weren't doing that well.

I think we can both agree that an unsourced Wikipedia article is an inferior refference source compared to Politifact which sites several studies on the subject. I think we can also agree that at the height of the great depression the general populations of the United States had 67% of the population living below the poverty line, not 50% for the elderly.. As you evidently just made up. Further that from 35 into the 1970's the nations' elderly percentage of poverty was greater than that of the normal population even with Social Security. So it makes sence that before 1935 without social security the percentage of elderly would be significantly greater than that of the average population.

[Mursilis]

I think we can both agree that Wikipedia is an inferior source compared to Politifact. I think we can also agree that at the height of the great depression the general populations of the United States had 67% of the population living below the poverty line, not 50% for the elderly.. As you evidently just made up.

I clearly cited a source for that stat (whether you like that source or not), so to accuse me of making stats up reflects only on your own integrity, not mine.

[Predicto]

Social Security will need to be tweaked, to be sure, but it's not the gorilla in the room.

That's Medicare, in my opinion.

This is the absolute truth.

Social Security is a easy fix. Just keep adjusting the retirement date to reflect the statistics about life expectancy, and you are fine.

Medicare is an ever expanding balloon that is is swallowing everything else.

---------- Post added March-28th-2011 at 09:12 AM ----------

The problems as they stand with Social Security is working from actuarial tables that were set up in the 1930's. For one, they were never planned to be something a person would draw for 20to 30 years. Life expectancy is much greater now then it was then. The changes needed are relatively minor. I do laugh that liberals think there is some hidden stash of money available for this program. There is no money. The much, much larger entitlement with dire problems is Medicare anyway.

Yes, you are correct (except for the cheap shot at us "liberals." We are not any not any more ignorant on this subject than anyone else- 95 percent of Americans on both sides have no idea how government finance works).

---------- Post added March-28th-2011 at 09:14 AM ----------

You have to wonder why it's mandatory then. If it is so great, why does the gov't have to compel people to be part of it? You'd think they'd just allow people to opt in.

I don't think you understand the purpose or value of a social safety net.

[JMS]

I clearly cited a source for that stat (whether you like that source or not), so to accuse me of making stats up reflects only on your own integrity, not mine.

The link you loosely refferenced does not support the information you presented. The net effect was your statement was made up...

Wikipedia says the stat EXCEEDED 50%..... Then you went on to use 50% as the actual metric.

---------- Post added March-28th-2011 at 12:37 PM ----------

I don't think you understand the purpose or value of a social safety net.

Or the fundamental principles behind the form of government called a Republic.

---------- Post added March-28th-2011 at 12:47 PM ----------

The problems as they stand with Social Security is working from actuarial tables that were set up in the 1930's. For one, they were never planned to be something a person would draw for 20to 30 years. Life expectancy is much greater now then it was then. The changes needed are relatively minor. I do laugh that liberals think there is some hidden stash of money available for this program. There is no money. The much, much larger entitlement with dire problems is Medicare anyway.

First off social security has been tweaked every decade since the 30's. It's not true social security is "working from actuarial tables set up in the 1930's". A "faction" worthy of Glen Beck.

It's also not true that in the 1990's the last time Social Secuirty got a tweaking they didn't realize some people would draw on social security for 20-30 years, or that the life expectancy today is so much greater than it was then in the 1990's.

It is true the changes to put social security into the black are relatively small... Just adding a few months to the retirement age would do it. It's also true that without tweaking the current system social secuirty deficit is substantially smaller than some new unfunded spending programs the Republicans are wedded too.. like extending the Bush tax credits... 10 years of such unfunded and unmatched reduction of federal income would pay for Social Security deficit spending for the next 70 years.

I really laugh at Conservatives who wracked up 11 trillion of the nation's 14 trillion dollar debt when they claim they don;t think they need to actually pay that money back.

[Larry]

Yes, raising the cap would help, but only if you don't correspondingly raise future benefits to reflect an earner's increased contribution. For example, as it currently stands (and as I understand it), assume I earn the cap amount this year (~$110K), and Albert Haynesworth earns much, much more. Yet both of us pay the same amount of SS taxes, because of the cap. When we go to collect SS, both AH would get roughly the same benefit, because benefits are also capped - AH wouldn't get a larger benefit for being the $100M man, because he didn't pay SS on most of that money. So assume we lift the cap, and AH pays SS taxes on all his income, not just up to ~$110K annually or whatever. Does his benefit also rise in the future, or is that still capped, so that he gets the same benefit as me, who earned much less? If so, how does that save the system money? And if his benefit is capped but his contribution to the fund isn't, how is that fair?

Oh, I agree. I have a moral problem with raising the cap on SS taxes, but not raising the cap on benefits. Not that I think it's grossly more unfair than any other form of taxation. But I think there are better ways.

Me, I'm a big fan of raising the retirement age to 70. (Gradually. IMO, doing it quickly would also be unfair.)

[The Sisko]

The problems as they stand with Social Security is working from actuarial tables that were set up in the 1930's. For one, they were never planned to be something a person would draw for 20to 30 years. Life expectancy is much greater now then it was then. The changes needed are relatively minor. I do laugh that liberals think there is some hidden stash of money available for this program. There is no money. The much, much larger entitlement with dire problems is Medicare anyway.

You're 100% correct about the actuarial problem. But by now I doubt there are few liberals or conservatives who actually believe that the SS trust fund means that there's a pot-o-dollars out there....at least I hope not. :paranoid:

However I think the crux of the problem is that many, perhaps most people don't really understand much about the system to be able to understand the flaws or benefits. I think a great example of that is the person at a Tea Party rally carrying a sign that read "No govt. healthcare...but keep your hands off my Medicare". :doh:

Regardless, I'd much rather that SS funds were kept separate from general govt. expenditures. Aside from allowing for additional spending, having the IOU system tempts politicians to use a current budget surplus to cut taxes, then yell about the deficit down the road while ignoring the fact that the effect of their tax cuts was to indirectly underfund the SS pension liability.

[DieselPwr44]

I really laugh at Conservatives who wracked up 11 trillion of the nations 14 trillion dollar debt when they claim they don;t think they need to actually pay that money back.

Let's get one thing straight:

Neither party thinks they need to pay it back.

If they did, they wouldn't make half..no quarter heart efforts at budget cuts and wouldn't pay only lip service to entitlement reform.

Hell, you can't even begin to talk about entitlement reform without one side or the other burning the guy/gal who brought it up at the stake.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

It's part of the conservative message to roll back the new deal and return us to the dawn of the industrial age policies before the hated labor movement enpowered workers....

Here is how the conservative logic runs.

Social Security is no longer profitable and the nation can't afford to run it indefinitely. Everybody who puts money into SS today is going to loose it because eventually the governemnt will be forced to shut it down. Ideally it would be best to privatize it so young people today will have some security.

The obvious flaws in their logic are

(1) Social Security made a profit from 1933-2011. This is the first year when it merely broke even.

(2) Social Security profits were spent / loaned to the federal governemnt.

(3) The Bush Tax Cuts extended over the next 10 years will cost more than the social security deficite over the next 70 years... ( That's from moving the top tax rate from 38% to 35%.)

(4) Privatizing Social Security effectively ends it. The money we put in today pays for the people recieving cash today, just like their money paid for the previous generation.

Thus the basis of the argument against social security is FUD. Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. Panic the population and get them to act against their own interests to advance the concervative agenda.

Why is that point true? I don't understand, perhaps, what we mean by privatizing SS, but why do you say that kills it?

[Larry]

The problems as they stand with Social Security is working from actuarial tables that were set up in the 1930's. For one, they were never planned to be something a person would draw for 20to 30 years. Life expectancy is much greater now then it was then. The changes needed are relatively minor.

Agreed. Just going from memory, but I think when SS was started, average life expectancy was something like 66.5. The idea was that people would pay in all their lives, and then collect for a year or two.

I do laugh that liberals think there is some hidden stash of money available for this program. There is no money.

I like the way conservatives act like if they just throw around some really scary sounding claims, then US t-bills will cease to exist.

[JMS]

Let's get one thing straight:

Neither party thinks they need to pay it back.

If they did, they wouldn't make half..no quarter heart efforts at budget cuts and wouldn't pay only lip service to entitlement reform.

Hell, you can't even begin to talk about entitlement reform without one side or the other burning the guy/gal who brought it up at the stake.

I disagree with drawing a parallel between Republican/( what passes for conservative) fiscal responsibility and that of the Democrats... The Democrat congress is the one which passed the pay as you go law. The modern Republican congress was the one which rescinded that law.

The Republicans put us in a fiscal pickle, and want the democrats to agree to cut entitlements to address that pickle. I don't really see any equivalent or compromise in their position.

One could basically do away with all entitlement spending today and still not balance the budget which makes entitlement spending reform a side show in my book.

Our entire fiscal problems have two fundamental issues neither related to entitlements...

1. The federal governments tax rates are at historic lows and the Republicans are seeking even greater revenue cuts. Thus our primary problem is a revenue problem based upon historic tax levels.
   
2. The Military Budget for the United States eclipses the rest of the world combined for defense spending.... knowing that the vast majority of the top 20 largest military spenders other than the US are strong US Allies. Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Japan.. etc...
   

Those are the two items which need the most immediate and serious attention. Not an entitlement program scheduled to go be insolvent in 30 years.

[Hubbs]

I think there are two reasons... one) conservatives have always hated it. Two) some forecasts make it look unsustainable in the future.

It's part of the conservative message to roll back the new deal and return us to the dawn of the industrial age policies before the hated labor movement enpowered workers....

Oh, for ****'s sake.

To answer the OP's question, the SS doesn't have a surplus in the form of $2.6 trillion that's sitting in a vault somewhere. The "surplus" has been redirected into the federal government's general budget and spent on other programs every year for decades now. The money isn't there. It's gone. Instead of actual money, the SS fund holds trillions in "non-marketable" Treasury securities, which means that the SS Administration isn't allowed to sell them to anyone else on the open market to raise money for SS payments. All the SSA can do is take a certain number of its securities to the Treasury and say, "We want to redeem these for X dollars." The Treasury then has to sell normal debt to bond investors to the tune of however much the SSA is asking for.

In other words, SS has been treated as an additional source of normal tax revenue for decades, but demographics and math mean that politically convenient pattern is about to change - big time. Without significant changes, SS will start to drain money from general funds, causing our debt problem to accelerate rapidly.

Now, JMS is right that raising the retirement age would fix things for a long time (pretty much until continued gains in average life expectancy force another fix). I think he, Larry, and I all agree that gradually bumping the retirement age up bit by bit is a necessary step to take. Unfortunately, JMS proceeds to dive headfirst into La-La Land by comparing additional changes, like opting out, to Nazi Germany invading half of Europe. (Seriously, if you didn't read it, post #27 in this thread.) He also misrepresents many of the arguments for various changes in SS, and even does the same thing for arguments against said changes. So it's hard to take more than about 10% of what he writes seriously.

[JMS]

Why is that point true? I don't understand, perhaps, what we mean by privatizing SS, but why do you say that kills it?

The reason why privatizing social security ends social security is because social security isn't a savings plan. It's a pact one generation makes with the next. If my social securty payments roll into my money market or mutual fund account as Bush Proposed; that means my money isn't going to pay for my Mom's check, or my Uncles check. It means there is no money to pay for their checks. It means a system which could become a problem say in 30-40 years would become a huge problem today as checks stop getting cut and 50% of the nation's elderly are immediately cast below the poverty line.

[Mursilis]

Regardless, I'd much rather that SS funds were kept separate from general govt. expenditures. Aside from allowing for additional spending, having the IOU system tempts politicians to use a current budget surplus to cut taxes, then yell about the deficit down the road while ignoring the fact that the effect of their tax cuts was to indirectly underfund the SS pension liability.

Problem with that idea is, something has to be done with the money, to allow it to grow. Buying T-bills with it is probably the safest thing, so I can't really fault the gov't for that, but the way they've done the accounting on all of this has been disingenuous.

---------- Post added March-28th-2011 at 01:41 PM ----------

I disagree with drawing a parallel between Republican/( what passes for conservative) fiscal responsibility and that of the Democrats... The Democrat congress is the one which passed the pay as you go law. The modern Republican congress was the one which rescinded that law.

The Republicans put us in a fiscal pickle, and want the democrats to agree to cut entitlements to address that pickle. I don't really see any equivalent or compromise in their position.

One could basically do away with all entitlement spending today and still not balance the budget which makes entitlement spending reform a side show in my book.

Our entire fiscal problems have two fundamental issues neither related to entitlements...

1. The federal governments tax rates are at historic lows and the Republicans are seeking even greater revenue cuts. Thus our primary problem is a revenue problem based upon historic tax levels.
   
2. The Military Budget for the United States eclipses the rest of the world combined for defense spending.... knowing that the vast majority of the top 20 largest military spenders other than the US are strong US Allies. Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Japan.. etc...
   

Those are the two items which need the most immediate and serious attention. Not an entitlement program scheduled to go be insolvent in 30 years.

So, when the Dems controlled Congress and the White House recently, what did they do to address military spending and low tax rates? Were taxes raised or military spending cut?

[JMS]

Oh, for ****'s sake.

To answer the OP's question, the SS doesn't have a surplus in the form of $2.6 trillion that's sitting in a vault somewhere.

Yeah, the nation's finances don't work conceptually like a piggy bank. We agree on that, but evidently disagree on why that is a problem?

The "surplus" has been redirected into the federal government's general budget and spent on other programs every year for decades now. The money isn't there. It's gone. Instead of actual money, the SS fund holds trillions in "non-marketable" Treasury securities, which means that the SS Administration isn't allowed to sell them to anyone else on the open market to raise money for SS payments. All the SSA can do is take a certain number of its securities to the Treasury and say, "We want to redeem these for X dollars." The Treasury then has to sell normal debt to bond investors to the tune of however much the SSA is asking for.

So what you are saying in broad terms is ll that money borrowed from social security wasn't borrowed at all. It was just stolen and is gone.... Nobody should expect the federal government to actually make good on that debt?

In other words, SS has been treated as an additional source of normal tax revenue for decades, but demographics and math mean that politically convenient pattern is about to change - big time. Without significant changes, SS will start to drain money from general funds, causing our debt problem to accelerate rapidly.

Or stated another way... The Republican party has other uses for social security outlays and doesn't want to use that money to keep the nation's elderly above the poverty line. The Republican party would rather slash the tax rates for the nation's top 1 % of earners from 38% to 35%. That's really what it boils down too. The Bush tax cuts extended for the next 10 years would pay for the social security deficit for the next 70! Republicans leaders want to do the former and not the latter.

Now, JMS is right that raising the retirement age would fix things for a long time (pretty much until continued gains in average life expectancy force another fix). I think he, Larry, and I all agree that gradually bumping the retirement age up bit by bit is a necessary step to take. Unfortunately, JMS proceeds to dive headfirst into La-La Land by comparing additional changes, like opting out, to Nazi Germany invading half of Europe. (Seriously, if you didn't read it, post #27 in this thread.) He also misrepresents many of the arguments for various changes in SS, and even does the same thing for arguments against said changes. So it's hard to take more than about 10% of what he writes seriously.

:doh:

Actually I didn't compare opting out of social security "to Nazi Germany invading half of Europe"... ( although Nazi Germany actually invaded 90% of Europe, all but Spain and Switzerland, but that's different issue...)

I was responding to a poster who believed the merits of a policy were based upon the willingness of the policy maker to let folks opt out of that policy. And to be entirely accurate, I didn't "say" anything but rather I made an observation. I noted when we got involved in WWII to defend the globe from fascism and defeat Hitler we didn't let citizens "opt out" of paying for it, I also noted that in the History of the United States, We typically don't let citizens "opt out" of tax policy based upon their own preference....

That "opting out" seems to be rather in conflict with the entire philosophy of a constitutional republic.. it's more of an anarchist's philosophy than a liberal or conservative one..

---------- Post added March-28th-2011 at 01:57 PM ----------

So, when the Dems controlled Congress and the White House recently, what did they do to address military spending and low tax rates? Were taxes raised or military spending cut?

Take Healthcare reform... Bush tackled healthcare reform in 2006 cost $950 billion didn't pay for a dime of it. Wrapped the entire expense into off budget package and asked the Chinese to send him a check. Bush's "plan" amounted to giving hundreds of billions of dollars to the healthcare trusts on the promise they would do their best to hold costs down... Then of coarse Bush's top congressional healthcare advisor (see Billy Tauzin) left congress pre-maturely weeks after Bush's bill was passed and became the highest paid healthcare lobiest.... "Conservative" leaders kind of held their noses and softly whispered among themselves. Grass roots entirely silent. That's a demonstration of GOP fiscal responsibility.

Now Take Obamacare. Obama tackles healthare and get's the non partisan CBO to verifty that his bill is 100% budget neutral over 10 years and will save the government hudreds of billions conservatively after that. Republicans grumble the CBO the gold standard in congressional spending is mistaken.. But the facts are that Obama got concessions and spending cuts in place before he passed his healthcare bill which paid for most of his spending. The savings documented by the CBO are actually smaller than the cuts and repeal of grants which Obama already lined up.

That was a representative difference in the approach of the two congresses.

---------- ----------

The Bush tax cuts expired under the current Republican Congress not the Democrats. A compromise was struck to allow them temporarily to remain in place. They weren't extended for another 10 years nor were they retired.

To date military spending under Obama has all been put on budget and has gone up slightly but not been cut. I consider that a huge victory knowing that military spending under George Bush's administration for both on budget and off budget about trippled over 8 years.

Bush inherited a Military which cost greater than the next 16 top military powers combined; and over eight years transformed it into an industry which eclipsed the rest of the globe combined in military spending.

Using Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich's formula for balancing the budget. Holding spending constant and allow the economy to grow out of the deficit is a reasonable approach. I personally think it's not ambitious enough... Given George Bush Sr actually cut the military spending 10% a year for three successive years.... But their is no way you can compare holding spending relatively constant tripling it.