House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., took to the House floor on New Year's Day to make the GOP case for extending the two-year federal pay freeze.
In the process, he acknowledged that federal employees were "hard-working," but said denying an across-the-board salary increase was simply a matter of sound budgeting in tight fiscal times.
Issa also offered what he characterized as a path toward future raises: rooting out duplication and inefficiency and restructuring federal agencies to wring savings from the budget. "The best way for federal workers to get a pay raise without it being on the backs of the the American people is to reorganize government," he said.
Issa declared he had made spearheading such a reorganization effort his New Year's resolution for 2013.
NEXT STORY: No Pay Increase for Congress