A proposed pay increase for members of Congress became one nail in the potential coffin of a stopgap funding measure on Wednesday, with some citing it as their breaking point. Others said it was merely an emblem of larger problems they saw in the year-end scramble.
Listing off objections to the sprawling package, President-elect Donald Trump said the pay bump was among them. “This bill would also give Congress a pay increase while many Americans are struggling this Christmas,” he and Vice President-elect JD Vance said in a joint statement Wednesday afternoon.
Later he wrote on Truth Social, “This is not a good time for Congress to be asking for pay increases. Hopefully, you’ll be entitled to such an increase in the near future when we, ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’”
For more than a decade, appropriators have inserted language into spending bills blocking a cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, for members of Congress and freezing their pay at $174,000 (though members of leadership make more). That language was not included in the bill text released Tuesday night.
It quickly prompted anger from lawmakers in purple districts, with Democratic Rep. Jared Golden of Maine saying negotiators were “sneaking new member perks into must-pass legislation behind closed doors.”
“If members can’t get by on our already generous salaries and benefits, they should find another line of work. As long as these provisions are in the CR, I will vote against it,” Golden said in a statement Wednesday morning.
The debate over a COLA has raged since the last one in 2009, with those in favor arguing that depressing member wages makes it more difficult for people who are not independently wealthy to run for Congress.
Georgia Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde, meanwhile, argued earlier this year that blocking a pay raise may be unconstitutional, forming an unlikely partnership with Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., the former House majority leader, who has long fought for a COLA.
But opposition to a pay bump remains, as members fear the optics of putting more money in their own pockets. And previous efforts have repeatedly fallen short. Earlier this year, bipartisan negotiations around the fiscal 2024 spending bill would have upped member pay, but ultimately hit a wall.
Golden led a bipartisan letter to Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries earlier this year calling for the exclusion of any COLA in fiscal 2025 spending bills.
The letter was signed by Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, along with Democratic Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Josh Harder of California and Chris Pappas of New Hampshire. It notes that members of Congress draw a salary higher than roughly 90 percent of American households.
As Wednesday unfolded and Speaker Mike Johnson weighed his next moves on the overall package, the ranks of Republican defectors grew, thanks in part to a pressure campaign mounted by Elon Musk.
“Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years,” wrote the world’s richest man, who spent millions boosting Trump and Republicans in the last election cycle and is now a public face of the GOP’s push for “government efficiency.”
Earlier in the day, several Democrats voiced their anger over the COLA move but stopped short of pulling their support.
“I have two words for you: not happy,” said Rep. Eric Sorensen of Illinois, who joined a separate letter, signed by Pappas and Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig, to Legislative Branch appropriators in June opposing a COLA. Sorensen said he had not decided how he would vote on the stopgap measure.
Gluesenkamp Perez issued a statement urging House leaders to reconsider. “Any way you slice it, Congress giving itself a pay raise right now is bananas,” she wrote.
Craig, who on Tuesday won the top Democratic spot on the House Agriculture Committee for the next Congress, said she was frustrated but would not see it as a reason to vote against the year-end package, which includes a one-year extension of the farm bill.
“I was shocked late last night to learn that Republicans had put that in,” Craig said of the pay bump. “But this bill also has $650 million in economic assistance to family farmers in it. It has year-round E15, which is really important to my corn growers back home. And it keeps the government open and our skies safe.”
Golden also objected to a separate provision in the stopgap measure that would allow members of Congress to purchase health insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, rather than through exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.
According to Golden, the change would lower out-of-pocket costs for members at the expense of taxpayers.
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