Trump blocked pay raises for 2 million workers. The House just voted to restore them.

[babylonsister]

Trump blocked pay raises for 2 million workers. The House just voted to restore them.
Trump said the government couldn’t afford cost-of-living increases for civilian federal employees.
By Alexia Fernández Campbell@[e-mail] Jan 30, 2019, 3:10pm EST


President Donald Trump canceled annual pay raises for federal employees last year — and now members of Congress are trying to restore them.

On Wednesday, the House passed a bill that would give civilian workers a 2.6 percent cost-of-living increase for 2019. They were supposed to receive an automatic 2.1 percent pay bump starting in January, but Trump canceled it in December — just days after he shut down the government and withheld paychecks for nearly 800,000 employees.

Furloughed employees are now back at work, waiting for their first paycheck of the year and back pay to cover the ones they missed during the 35-day shutdown. But Trump’s decision to reopen the government for three weeks — without funding for a border wall— did not include a raise.

That means roughly 2 million people won’t get an annual pay raise this year, including Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Members of Congress, though, think they can still make it happen. Senate Democrats introduced another bill on Tuesday calling for the 2.6 percent raise, which would match the increase given to military service members. So far, the bill has no Republican support, but GOP Senate leaders had previously been willing to give employees a 1.9 percent raise.

“Congress can override, and Congress should override this executive order,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who represents a district with thousands of federal workers.

Whether or not they can make a deal with the Senate is up in the air, and the raise may end up as part of the negotiations over the next government spending bill, which Congress must pass by February 15 to keep the government open. The main barrier to a deal, however, is the president, who has shown little to no concern for the impact his decision would have on the livelihoods of American workers.

more...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/30/18203613/house-pay-raise-federal-workers?fbclid=IwAR0yesc51CYWBHcyfgUJFkxhgBoItw0nPxh_0UZSnqkjtXFArZYaEA1Y2Vw

[katmondoo]

1. The REpublicans are the meanest people on earth

Everything they do and think is mean, mean and mean again and again.