The Bush administration is seeking several reforms in the budget process that could have implications for federal pay and benefits, which are funded-and sometimes changed-through that process. One provision would in effect make it more difficult for Congress to continue the practice of setting annual federal raises at the rate going to the military in the name of “pay parity.” In most recent years, Congress has sweetened the federal raise to match the uniformed military figure but has not specifically appropriated extra funds to pay the cost, leaving it up to agencies to absorb the expense from other accounts. An administration proposal would effectively require that the funding be provided up-front-not an impossible task, but a difficult one given the size of the federal deficits. For example, boosting the proposed 1.5 percent January 2005 federal raise to the 3.5 percent proposed for the military-which civil service leaders in Congress hope to do in this year’s budget cycle-would cost about $2 billion.