House, Senate Bills Similar in Many Ways

In addition to the raise language, several other provisions in the Senate version of the Treasury-Postal measure also are similar to those in the House version (HR-5120), in particular language banning the use of numeric goals for privatizing federal jobs. Both would deny the administration’s request to change the way Federal Employees Health Benefits costs and Civil Service Retirement System costs are accounted for by moving those costs from central Treasury accounts into individual agency budgets. Both similarly would deny its request to shift the costs of administering Federal Employees Compensation Act benefits from the Labor Department to individual agencies. The Bush administration has expressed its disappointment with all of those provisions and in the case of the contracting-out language has threatened a veto.