By a 299-126 margin, the House has voted in favor of setting federal raises for January 2005 at the same level as military raises, in effect a vote endorsing a 3.5 percent raise rather than the 1.5 percent the White House recommended. The vote, one of the rare times the full House or Senate has addressed the federal pay raise as a separate issue (rather than as one provision among many in a larger bill), was held after the House Budget Committee refused to include “pay parity” language in its version of a budget outline for fiscal 2005. Sponsors of the language argued that federal employees make contributions to the nation just as important as those of military personnel and that the practice of providing equal raises that has been followed in all but a few years in the past two decades should be maintained. The Senate earlier approved a budget outline that does contain pay parity language.