Tax dollars for military pay increase a good plan

President Bush’s out-of-balance budget is full of troublesome proposals along with excellent ideas. Among its better points, the budget has one proposal that deserves as sharp a salute as any.

That’s the president’s call for another round of significant military pay raises.

While our service personnel are righting some major international wrongs, the president intends to keep addressing the wrongfully low pay they receive. His proposal calls for a 4.1 percent pay increase, which Congress will likely approve enthusiastically.

The salaries for military men and women have long been an embarrassment. About a decade ago, a visiting NATO officer left his assignment at Naval Station Everett with wonderful impressions and one heartfelt plea — that America do something about the miserable pay for the fine young men and women serving their country.

As the officer noted, the situation was particularly bad in the enlisted ranks, with some young families eligible for food stamps. There continue to be reports of military families qualifying for food stamps nationally, although the number has fallen considerably.

Raises from the 2002 budget just began showing up in Navy paychecks for Everett and Whidbey Island personnel. The raises averaged 6.9 percent, with individuals’ increases ranging from 5 percent to 15 percent. Those were the largest raises in a generation.

About the only argument likely to be heard over the new pay raise concerns the fact that other federal employees would only receive 2.6 percent hikes. Bobby Harnage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, has reportedly called the Bush plan "a slap in the face" to both civilian Pentagon employees who died in the Sept. 11 attacks and the federal civilian workforce generally.

Please. Take a deep breath.

As the union points out, government employees frequently don’t make as much money as their private-sector counterparts. Federal employees, however, have a degree of job security that most people — especially locally — would welcome. If our military personnel enjoy the same degree of security as civilian federal employees, we’d like to hear about it.

Not many people, in the private or public sector, would trade warm offices and computer screens for months on duty at sea or in Afghanistan. Americans can be thankful for their service personnel and glad the president is willing to spend our tax dollars to improve military pay.

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