Lawmakers urge Congress to give feds a pay raise
- By FederalSoup Staff
- Sep 04, 2018
Eight House Democrats who represent the D.C.-metro area have penned a letter to congressional leaders asking them to give federal employees a raise for 2019, despite the president’s call for a pay freeze.
“We write to urge you to reject the president’s decision to deny hardworking federal employees a modest, scheduled pay increase of 2.1 percent…” the opening of the letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) states.
The 2.1 percent across-the-board increase was set to go into effect in January, but in an Aug. 30 letter to lawmakers, President Trump set all across‑the‑board and locality pay increases to zero for 2019.
He wrote that the government "must maintain efforts to put our nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases."
But the lawmakers—House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and Maryland Democratic Reps. Anthony Brown, John Delaney, Jamie Raskin and John Sarbanes, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and Virginia Reps. Don Beyer and Gerry Connolly—don’t agree with the president’s reason for canceling the pay raise.
“It is beyond cynical that the president would cite serious economic and fiscal concerns to justify his decision to cancel a pay adjustment for middle class workers while he tweets constantly about economic gains and touts a tax bill that exploded the deficit by $1.5 trillion,” the group wrote.
They are asking for a 1.9 percent pay raise for 2019. The group also said that they believe the administration is vilifying federal employees.
“The ongoing assault on federal employees is unprecedented and it does nothing to improve the functionality of the federal government,” the letter continues.
It asks for Congress to provide the 1.9 percent pay raise that has already been approved by the Senate, “at the very least.”
Read the letter here.