Two interesting reports out today from the Congressional Budget Office.
First, about that "surge. 20,000 troops or so, right? Wrong!
To reflect some of the uncertainty about the number of support troops, CBO developed its estimates on the basis of two alternative assumptions. In one scenario, CBO assumed that additional support troops would be deployed in the same proportion to combat troops that currently exists in Iraq. That approach would require about 28,000 support troops in addition to the 20,000 combat troops—a total of 48,000. CBO also presents an alternative scenario that would include a smaller number of support personnel—about 3,000 per combat brigade—totaling about 15,000 support personnel and bringing the total additional forces to about 35,000...
According to CBO, these additional troop deployments will cost between $7 billion and $10 billion this year alone, $4 billion to $7 billion more than the Administration’s estimate. Total cost of the troop increase could range between $9 billion and $49 billion, which reflects the costs of a four-month and a 24-month troop increase.
Second, a slightly less easy to interpret but potentially more important report on economic instability. Via Kevin Drum, who provides this summary:
CBO Director Peter Orszag makes the point that although the broad economy has gotten more stable over the past few decades (fewer big booms and busts), at the individual level it's gotten less stable. This is especially true for high school dropouts, who have considerably more income instability than more educated workers.
Be sure to click thru and spend a few seconds looking at his graph. If you want to understand the current disconnect between economic statistics and perceptions, this one graph may very well be all you need.
Our economy has changed over the past few decades, and it has changed dramatically. The unemployment vs. inflation dichotomy of the 1970s and 1980s is no longer enough to understand what is going. We need to learn to look beyond simple economic measures and indices if we are going to truly understand what is going on. Thankfully, this new report is an excellent step in the right direction.
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