Trump says government won't give civilian employees raises in 2019

[BumRushDaShow]

22. So he is admitting the economy is in dire straits?

As a note - Congress can always add it back in, although the House included a freeze in their draft version, which is different from the increase in the Senate version per the OP. So obviously the two bills need to be reconciled and there could be a veto threat too.

I doubt the Senate would go along with the House and give nothing when they both already gave the military 2.6%.... So there will be lots of sausage-making to happen. Feds had 3 years with no pay raise (FY11, 12, 13) during the depths of the great recession, and then only got 1% for FY14 & FY15, 1.3% in FY16, 2.1% in FY17 & 1.9% in FY18 (+incl. locality pay) and we are not in the middle of a recession at the moment. If anything, they could be sued for violating the Pay Comparability Act for letting it go so paltry for so long -

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Years ago, a Republican president (George H.W. Bush) and a Democratic Congress passed the FEPCA law. It provided for a series of annual pay raises that were designed to gradually lift federal pay, on a city-by-city basis (locality pay) based on comparable wages for their counterparts in the private sector. But when he took office, President Bill Clinton balked at what he and advisers thought were overly generous raises. He recommended a 0 percent increase. Congress overrode him, but that set the pattern that continued through President George W. Bush. Pay raises that were smaller than called for by the FEPCA law. President Obama proposed a two-year federal pay raise freeze which Congress, happily, extended to three.

https://federalnewsradio.com/federal-report/2016/05/sad-history-of-federal-pay-raises/