Stephen Reader
Stephen Reader covers politics for It's a Free Country, WNYC's interactive politics site. He joined the station in 2010 and has also worked for Studio 360, WNYC's Peabody Award-winning show about art, culture, and creativity.
Don't Worry, Congress Won't Face Pay Cuts in Sequestration
Monday, September 17, 2012
Members' seats in the U.S. House of Representatives
(Getty)
Members of Congress won't see their paychecks shrink after massive scheduled spending cuts go into effect in 2013, but the police on Capitol Hill will.
On Friday afternoon the White House released its most detailed report on the sequestration agreed upon as part of last summer's debt ceiling compromise. Under the deal, if Congress fails to agree on and enact $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, it would trigger an automatic across-the-board reduction in spending starting January 2013.
Not everything in the government's budget is sequestrable, though. Compensation for members of the House and Senate as well as federal judges aren't heading toward the same "fiscal cliff" as their personnel and employees.
Elected officials won't feel the squeeze because one Congress can't pass a law that affects the pay of a future Congress. Compensation for members of the House and Senate had to be exempt from sequestration agreed upon in 2011 and scheduled to take place in 2013, else the legislation would have violated the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (ratified 1992).
The budgets for Capitol police and court security, meanwhile, each face an 8.2 percent cut. At nearly every government office, salaries for employees will be cut while those for elected officials will be protected.
Yet another perk to kicking the can down the road.
Comments [4]
Quit blaming Bush...typical liberal lines.....using that analogy means that no president or any other official is responsible for their job. All they have to do is point to the past and lay the blame there. We voted our officials in office to fix things, not to hear whose fault it is.
Democrats had the majority in all three branches of the government and did not do anything but give us healthcare that just taxes the young people in the country and create another slush fund that the government can pillage like they have done to Social Security. If they wanted everyone covered, they could have expanded Medicare and Medicaid, which is a program already estabilished.
The problem lies with our CURRENT officials, not the past. It is on all sides of the isle, democrats, republicans and independants. We expect them to compromise, not getting everything they want but meeting somewhere in the middle.
FY 2009 (last Bush budget) had a deficit that was $150B higher than 2010. The debt ceiling 'crisis' was manufactured by the Right to frighten people and protect the Bush Tax cuts. It's only effect, so far, has been to lower our credit rating and show that there is no compromise that the GOP will not back away from.
If it takes jumping off the fiscal cliff and a return to recession, I would prefer that over letting the GOP continue to bleed the Treasury and the American middle class. I am that fed up with arguing over what is fair with guys who have no concept of fair or enough or justice. At least we can ALL hurt together.
This fact is comical at best. It's nice to know that the elected officials are taking care of their most loyal constituants...Themselves. I would like to see all incumbents Democrats,Republicans, and Independents thrown out of office at the next election. They have proved that any one can do their "job". Perhaps we could hire actors and actresses, heck Martin Sheen made a great President.
Just a reminder that the 2010 Democrat Congress that dramatically ran up the debt and did not produce a budget like they were supposed to could have raised the debt ceiling and taxes that year.
They deliberately shirked their duty and left it for the new Republican House in 2011 for petty political reasons which led to the debt ceiling crisis and sequestration.
The Democrat controlled US Senate also has not passed a budget in over three years but the Republican House did pass a budget and offered other long term plans like "cut, cap and balance".
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