The White House has put off until March 4the release its annual budget proposal, which under normal practices would have come out next Monday. The delay gives employee organizations more time to advocate for a raise recommendation for January 2015 higher than the 1 percent paid out this month, potentially the 1.8 percent indicated by the underlying pay law. They meanwhile are arguing that unlike the past two White House proposals, the plan should not call for increasing contributions toward retirement by all federal employees. Some members of Congress have said they expect the White House will not repeat that proposal, given that increases in required contributions have been enacted two years in a row—although only for employees not already on board at the time. However, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that other members of Congress will raise a plan of their own. That has happened repeatedly in recent years with House Republicans advocating an increase of nearly 6 percentage points, compared with the 1.2 points the administration has proposed. Employee organizations also have called for repeal the increase already enacted, but that would require finding offsetting deficit reduction elsewhere.