Taxpayer group urges Congress to cut pay raise

A taxpayers' organization last week asked members of Congress to deny themselves a pay raise next year. If Congress doesn't get a raise, top government executives won't get one either. In a Sept. 27 letter to congressional leaders, the National Taxpayers Union argued that a pay raise would be improper given the country's economic condition and impending war against terrorism. "During the Depression era, lawmakers actually reduced their salaries in 1932 and 1933 as gestures of sympathy to millions of fellow citizens who were suffering economic harm," wrote Peter J. Sepp, the taxpayer union's vice president for communications. "Although this year's slumping economy should have been reason enough to reconsider a pay hike, the recent attack on our own soil has given greater urgency to this matter." An automatic pay increase for members of Congress will go into effect in January unless lawmakers act to stop it. Members who oppose the pay raise usually use the annual Treasury-Postal bill to block the automatic increase, but this year they did not insert a blocking provision in the House or Senate versions, meaning the pay raise is set to go through. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said the raise would be $4,900, or 3.4 percent. That raise would allow top members of the Senior Executive Service to get a raise in January as well, since SES pay is tied to congressional pay. The top rungs of SES pay have hit a cap on Congress' pay scale, meaning executives can only get a raise if Congress gives itself one. Next year, 63 percent of the government's 6,500 senior executives will get raises only if Congress gives itself one. The taxpayers union also urged Congress to support legislation sponsored by Feingold that would end automatic pay increases forever. Instead, Feingold's bill (S. 110) would require Congress to enact legislation every year either granting or denying itself a pay raise. Congress has voted to block pay raises for its members every year since 1993, except for 1998, 2000 and 2001. Over time, more and more career executives have seen their salaries reach the pay cap, so that now executives at the top three of the six SES levels all earn the same salaries. In eight cities, federal executives at the top four levels are all paid the same. The Senior Executives Association, a Washington-based group of federal executives, wants Congress to detach executive pay from congressional pay, or to at least put a higher cap on executive pay.