Vulnerable Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock on Thursday pushed back against President Donald Trump’s decision to scrap a planned, across-the-board 2.1 percent pay raise for civilian federal employees, which was supposed to take effect at the start of 2019.
Trump wrote in a letter to congressional leaders that he would freeze the wages of federal employees in an effort to save money. “We must maintain efforts to put our nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases,” his letter stated. Trump also wrote that he would halt plans for separate geographic pay increases. Military members will still be given a 2.6 percent wage hike.
The president’s cited concerns about fiscal responsibility haven’t translated to more consequential areas: His key legislative achievement, the Republican tax bill, is estimated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to end up costing nearly $2 trillion over a decade, and the GOP-controlled Congress under his watch recently boosted government spending by hundreds of billions in a bipartisan two-year budget deal.
The move to freeze federal pay already appears unpopular in Congress, especially among members who represent large portions of the federal workforce around the country. Lawmakers could choose to codify the previously scheduled raise in the spending bills currently being completed by both chambers. Comstock, who represents a district filled with federal employees, said in a statement Thursday afternoon that she would urge her colleagues to do just that.
“I strongly oppose eliminating the pay raise for civilian federal employees and will work with my colleagues to have the pay raise included in our appropriations,” she wrote. “We cannot balance the budget on the backs of our federal employees and I will work with my House and Senate colleagues to keep the pay increase in our appropriations measures that we vote on in September.”
