What’s Not in the Budget is Notable, Too

Several past proposals are notable for their absence. For example, there is no mention of increasing federal employee contributions toward retirement, nor of changing the inflation index used to set retiree COLAs to the less generous “chained” CPI–proposals that have been out of the White House plan for several years now. This year it further abandoned a long-running proposal to reduce FECA injury compensation benefits in several ways, including by transferring beneficiaries to retirement benefits once they hit retirement eligibility age. Such proposals could yet surface in the budget process, however, since they have been raised repeatedly in spending-reduction plans put forth by Republican budgets. The congressional budget committees are to start writing their spending plans in the weeks ahead. However, the absence of such proposals from the White House budget will mean less chance of their being enacted.