Return to Washington Examiner Homepage
May 21, 2013 | 01:24 PM
politics
Washington D.C. weather
Politics

'Fiscal cliff' deal to block pay hike for Congress

December 31, 2012 | Modified: December 31, 2012 at 10:23 pm
Leave a comment
Photo - Vice President Joe Biden, center, with Majority Leader Harry Reid, left, of Nevada, arrive for a Senate Democratic caucus meeting about the fiscal cliff, on Capitol Hill Monday, Dec. 31, 2012 in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Vice President Joe Biden, center, with Majority Leader Harry Reid, left, of Nevada, arrive for a Senate Democratic caucus meeting about the fiscal cliff, on Capitol Hill Monday, Dec. 31, 2012 in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Legislation to prevent the government from going over the so-called fiscal cliff will also block a $900 automatic pay hike for members of Congress.

It's one more reason for lawmakers to vote for the measure extending Bush-era tax cuts on individual income up to $450,000 while increasing rates for earnings above that threshold.

Under a 1989 law, lawmakers are supposed to receive automatic cost-of-living pay hikes, but as Congress' approval ratings have fallen, lawmakers have routinely voted to reject the raise.

Lawmakers make $174,000 a year. They had already voted in September to block the pay raise through March 27, but President Barack Obama recently issued an executive order to implement it, along with a pay increase for federal workers.

From WeeklyStandard.com

  • He’s No Nixon

    The thoughtful Carl Cannon has written a piece, " Richard Milhous Obama ," concluding that our current president has more in common with our 37th than President Obama's partisans would like to...

    Read More...

  • IRS's Lerner Had History of Harassment, Inappropriate Religious Inquiries at FEC

    Perhaps no other IRS official is more intimately associated with the tax agency's growing scandal than Lois Lerner, director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division. Since admitting the IRS...

    Read More...

  • Yet Another Obamacare Design Flaw

    The more the evidence emerges, the more one has to wonder: Could Obamacare have been designed any more poorly? Even those who don’t mind Obamacare’s striking consolidation of power and money...

    Read More...