Daniel Goure commits the mistake of not comparing apples to apples.

• Author: Cochrane, Michael F.
• Position: Readers' Forum - Letter to the editor

* In his article, "Federal Agency Insourcing: Why Government Costs So Much," Daniel Goure commits the mistake of not comparing apples to apples. His metric of choice for comparing the costs of a federal worker versus a private contractor is average annual compensation (wages plus benefits). This is the amount of compensation that accrues to the employee. He completely ignores the fact that, when the federal government contracts with a private company for services, the true cost of that employee to the government is not only the take-home pay and benefits, but all the overhead and profit allocated by the company to that employee.

The true annual cost to the federal government of a typical military contractor (a full-time equivalent unit, or FTE) is anywhere between...