Long Road Ahead on Raise

The budget resolution is only an early step in the lengthy process of making spending decisions on the raise and a host of other issues, but approval of the House language would continue a signal of intent to continue the practice of pay parity, which has been followed in all but a few years for the last several decades. The budget resolution is not presented to the White House, but serves as a guide for writing appropriations bills that contain the needed funds. In most recent years, one of those bills—now called the financial services-general government bill—has specified a federal raise, while the separate defense appropriations bill has specified the military raise. Often the raise figures are not enacted into law until well into the autumn and sometimes not until near year’s end. A separate annual DoD bill, the authorization, typically specifies the military raise that sets the target figure for the federal raise before action occurs on the appropriations bill.