Afghanistan resembling Vietnam; meanwhile, federal work force grows

Some six months ago I wrote a column asking the question “Why Afghanistan?” and have been following events there since that time.

In those ensuing months, we have seen an increase (almost double) in our troop commitment there and have witnessed new highs in casualties in two successive months.

It is also now being reported that Secretary of Defense Gates “may be open to troop increases” in Afghanistan. This represents a shift in policy from positions stated earlier and reminds me of the actions of an earlier secretary of Defense and an earlier administration as they piecemealed efforts during the Vietnam era.

It has always been my belief that when you engage in armed conflict you do not “tippy toe” about it but that you put your entire effort forward and crush the enemy. Piecemeal efforts will not do; they serve to attrite your forces and the will of the people to support the continuation.

So, Secretary Gates, let us not be wishy washy about troop increases but see that the military commanders on the scene get whatever it is they need to get this endeavor over with. We must not have another quagmire.

While the current administration is following through on reducing the combat forces in Iraq (where, in my opinion, we should have never been in the first place), it is also increasing the number of mercenaries hired to protect U.S. bases there at a potential cost of almost $1 billion. I feel that the attempt to establish a stable, safe, pro-United States government in Iraq has not been achieved.

* Some comments about domestic policies: Do you recall that when the “Clunkers” program was initiated that the government said that it had 700 people working on the program; then, a few days after it started, said 2,000 people were needed to do the job? Well, a few days ago, the government said it had 5,000 people working on it and it is not done yet.

Tuesday’s Washington Post had very few help-wanted ads but 14-plus pages of foreclosure ads. Is the stimulus program working?

Now that was interesting enough, but elsewhere in the paper was an article about the government needing to hire 600,000 people with some 120,000 in the Washington metropolitan area. Now, that is one way to combat the growth in unemployment, but it seems that fewer and fewer of us are left to pay the taxes that support their salaries.

Let’s take a look at some of the figures. According to statistics from the Congressional Budget Office, there were roughly 2.7 million federal employees — this is actually down from a high of some 3.2 million in the late 1970-80 time frame — with an average salary of $63,431 in December 2005 (this excludes the benefits package, which has a value of from 26 to 50 percent of salary).

From the Heartland Institute we find that the average household paid a total of $26,798 in taxes in 2004, of which $17,338 went to the federal government and $9,400.00 to state and local governments.

Of the $17,338, some $7,062 was attributed to income tax. So it would thus appear that it will take the efforts of some 5.4 million households to pay the salaries of the 600,000 people the government intends to hire ($63,431 divided by $7,062 times 600,000).

I presume that some of the 600,000 will be replacements for those retiring or otherwise leaving the federal work force, so let us say that the federal employee total is 3 million. That means that roughly 27 million households will be working to support the federal work force, and that is not counting the military, the contracted services, etc.

Thus, approximately 25 percent of the households (estimated 113.5 households in 2004) work to support the federal employee work force.

Bayne’s column runs every Sunday on the editorial page.