Lawmakers vote to eliminate salaries for some federal workers

Though lawmakers failed to advance proposals to freeze federal employees' step increases and bonuses, the House-passed bill funding agencies for the rest of fiscal 2011 would eliminate salaries for workers involved in health care reform and for some political appointees.

The House on Saturday passed spending legislation that included a provision to prevent federal employees working to implement health care reform from receiving salaries. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, the amendment's sponsor, said the measure is another step toward repealing the reform law passed in March 2010. A similar provision that Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., sponsored prohibits the use of appropriated funds for any employee, contractor, or grantee involved in the law's implementation.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, called the amendments "irresponsible," noting Internal Revenue Service and Health and Human Services Department employees in particular would feel the impact of the defunding proposals.

"The amendments would prevent IRS employees from providing valuable taxpayer assistance in understanding the health care law, such as reaching out to small businesses to help them understand how to qualify for new tax credits for health care premiums paid for in 2010," she said. "They would also inhibit the ability of the IRS to put in place information technology systems needed to implement provisions of the law and to conduct more extensive taxpayer outreach."

The bill also attacks political appointees. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., introduced a measure to cut the Obama administration's use of czars, individuals chosen to oversee specific policy areas and who do not require Senate confirmation. The amendment would defund nine positions, including the director of the White House Office of Health Reform, the Treasury Department's special master for Troubled Asset Relief Program executive compensation, and the assistant to the president for energy and climate change.

Most of the positions in question have an equivalent employee who has been confirmed by the Senate and should be performing the czar's responsibilities, Scalise spokesman Stephen Bell said. Scalise has called this group of people a "shadow government …who are implementing radical policies under the cloak of darkness."

The House legislation also would limit pay and benefits for federal employees serving overseas. Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., sponsored a provision to cancel a third round of locality pay increases for Foreign Service officers, who since 2009 have received annual boosts to close a 24 percent gap with Washington-area employees.

The Republican-backed spending measure has yet to pass the Democratically led Senate, which would be unlikely to accept the deep cuts. House Republicans are working on a two-week continuing resolution that would keep government open after March 4, when the current appropriations bill runs out, and allow more time for negotiation on spending levels. The short-term GOP measure would include some of the cuts the House approved on Saturday and some decreases President Obama has proposed.