Government Jobs

I read all of "U.S. Payrolls Grow Solidly" (Aug. 6) before I came to the real punch line. The last sentence tells us that two-thirds of the total job growth during the Bush administration came from government jobs! Doesn't this administration claim to be in favor of smaller government? Richard Young Claremont

Iraqis, who are already dealing with food shortages, daily power blackouts and a deadly insurgency, on Sunday received another dose of bad news: Their newly elected leaders may slash budgets and government jobs. Many fear that the move could cause impoverished Iraqis to sympathize with rebel forces. The new Iraqi government said it recently had deployed 40,000 troops in the capital to capture militants, who have killed more than 800 people in the last month in suicide bombings and other attacks.

With a college degree in planning, Cesar Rincon could have landed a job with any number of private consulting firms in Los Angeles. Instead the Boyle Heights native applied to the Los Angeles County Planning Department shortly after getting his diploma five years ago. The private sector might have paid more, Rincon said, but the stability of his county planning job and the promise of a good retirement were more important.

More than 40 state governments have contracted with companies in India and other low-wage countries to help administer new food-stamp and other taxpayer-funded programs, according to a study released Wednesday by a technology workers union. The practice by state agencies of sending work overseas has proliferated despite efforts in many legislatures to impose restrictions on doing so, the study said, and foreign firms are becoming more aggressive in their efforts to win government contracts.

The Iraqi Governing Council softened its stance Tuesday on the possible reinstatement of some members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to their civil service positions. Ministries will form committees to consider possible exemptions to the policy of "de-Baathification" of the ranks of Iraq's enormous government bureaucracy, the council said in a directive.

The ratio of one public sector job to six private is California's biggest problem ("Public Sector's Job Insecurity," July 11). Add to that higher wages and the more generous benefits/pension packages and you've created not a "huge economic engine" but a tremendous drain on the resources of this state. The fatter government becomes, the leaner by necessity the private sector must become in order to support it. This is not a sustainable system. Kyda Sylvester Auburn, Calif.

Saddam Hussein never had to worry about the loyalties of this prosperous trading town on the banks of the Euphrates River. The people of Fallouja were Sunni Muslims, tribal and insular -- much like Hussein himself. Some didn't like the former president, but they weren't particularly oppressed by him. From the townspeople's viewpoint, the same cannot be said of the U.S. soldiers involved in an ugly confrontation this week that left 15 locals dead.

Rebel leaders took over their portfolios in the country's new power-sharing government, raising hopes of an end to nearly seven months of war. The war is rooted in years of bitterness between the country's tribes. Government ministers from the three rebel factions stalled for weeks before taking up their jobs under the peace deal, which was brokered by the French.

Luis Miguel Ortiz Haro, a veteran Mexican government official and member of that country's ruling political party, has been named the new Mexican consul in Santa Ana. Ortiz Haro, 42, who has held a variety of jobs in Mexico's Federal District, is moving to the United States today and will start his job Tuesday.

When the Pentagon is at war, it comes up with some nifty ideas. The latest one was the Office of Strategic Influence. Its role was to coordinate public press releases and to plant false information with friends and foes alike. The brass thought it was a neat idea until the American public found out about it. (Again, blame the media.