House votes to increase pay for itself, President

With scant debate, the House voted 276-147 Thursday to let legislators receive a cost-of-living pay raise exceeding $4,600, before going on to approve the fiscal 2000 Treasury-Postal appropriations bill.

The House also voted to double the President's salary, from $200,000 to $400,000. Presidential pay has not been increased since 1969.

Technically, the vote approving the congressional raise was on the floor rule for debating the Treasury-Postal legislation. But leaders of both parties, who support the increase, had made it clear that approving the debate rules meant that a later amendment to block the pay increase would not be in order.

There was almost no discussion of the increase, let alone debate. House Treasury-Postal Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., said he hoped the debate rules would be approved, and freshman Reps. Ken Lucas, D-Ky., and Ernest Fletcher, R-Ky., rose to simply say they would oppose them.

"It looked like there was so much bipartisan support for the COLA I didn't think anybody wanted to make it a major, controversial issue," Fletcher told the Associated Press afterward.

Most House members and Senators have earned $136,700 annually since January 1998; leaders get more.

The Senate had approved its version of the bill without language preventing the pay increase.