Freezing Federal Pay

On Friday, the House passed H.R. 273, legislation that overturns the President’s December 2012 executive order giving non-military federal employees an across-the-board raise. President Obama’s proposed non-merit-based pay raise would go to bureaucrats—many of whom are already receiving boosts to their pay in the form of performance-related bonuses. According to the Congressional Budget Office, federal workers make an average of 16 percent more in total compensation than their private sector peers. H.R. 273 will save taxpayers more than $11 billion over ten years.

This legislation is not an effort to unduly target or punish federal workers, but is simply a part of the essential belt-tightening that we all must do to rein in federal spending and get our fiscal house in order. Our federal workforce has many hardworking civilian employees, including those who operate our border patrol, our national parks sytsem and our federal law enforcement agencies. However, until we can get our economy back on track and restore discipline to our federal budget, it is simply irresponsible to give federal workers arbitrary pay increases.