Spending Bills Start to Move

The House this week is bringing up for votes the first of the annual appropriations bills that carry spending and policy decisions for the upcoming fiscal year, starting with one covering veterans and military construction programs and one covering the legislative branch’s own operations. The latter bill once again would freeze pay for members of Congress, for what would be the sixth straight year, a decision that commonly spills over to political appointees in the executive branch. That, in turn, typically means a freeze in the salary caps applying to federal employees in high-level pay systems such as the SES as well as to those in the upper reaches of the GS system; this year was an exception, however, since while pay for appointees remained frozen, the pay caps increased. The bill that typically determines the federal pay raise, the financial services-general government measure, hasn’t advanced even in the committee level yet. If that bill remains silent on the raise, as did an earlier budget outline that passed the House, that will be a sign of an intent to follow last year’s course and allow the 1 percent raise proposed by the White House to take effect by default. It’s already widely expected that Congress will not complete work on many if any of the appropriations bills before the new fiscal year starts October 1 and that a temporary extension will be enacted to fund agencies until after the elections.