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Lawmakers to get $3,100 pay
raise
Columbia Daily Tribune
November 19, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Republican-controlled Congress helped itself to a
$3,100 pay raise yesterday, then postponed work on bills to curb spending on
social programs and cut taxes in favor of a two-week vacation.
Both the House and Senate were in session after midnight Thursday, working
on the tax and deficit-cutting bills at the heart of the GOP agenda.
"What it does is start to turn down the escalating costs ... for our
children and our grandchildren. One of the things that we cannot leave to that
next generation is a huge deficit that they can't afford," House Speaker
Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said after enactment of a $50 billion deficit-reduction
bill.
Democrats dissented, with one eye on the 2006 elections.
"The Republicans are taking food out of the mouths of children to give tax
cuts to America's wealthiest. This is not a statement of America's
values," said the Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.
The cost-of-living increase for members of Congress - which will put pay for
the rank and file at an estimated $165,200 a year - marked a brief truce in the
pitched political battles that have flared in recent weeks on the war and
domestic issues.
So much so that the issue was not mentioned on the floor of either the House
or Senate as lawmakers worked on legislation whose passage will assure bigger
paychecks.
Lawmakers automatically receive a cost of living increase each year, unless
Congress votes to block it. By tradition, critics have tried to block increases
by attaching a provision to the legislation that provides funding for the
Department of the Treasury. One such attempt succeeded in the Senate earlier in
the year, but the provision was omitted from the compromise measure moved
toward final approval.
The overall bill provided $140 billion for transportation, housing and other
programs. It cleared the House on a vote of 392-31. Senate passage was by voice
vote.
Pay raise harmony aside, Republicans spent the day celebrating a party-line,
post-midnight vote in which the House cleared legislation to reduce deficits by
$50 billion over five years. The vote was 217-215, with all the Democrats who
voted in opposition, along with 14 GOP rebels.
Acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt of Missouri said Republicans would make
their tax cut bill the top item on the agenda when lawmakers return to the
Capitol in December.
The House-passed measure attacks deficits by limiting spending for the first
time in a decade on Medicaid, food stamps, student loans and other benefit
programs that normally rise with inflation and eligibility.
The House GOP leadership had hoped to clear the measure a week ago. It was
forced to retreat when Republican moderates rebelled, even after Hastert agreed
to strip out a controversial proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge to oil drilling.
The Senate-passed companion measure calls for less deficit reduction, $35
billion over five years, but includes the ANWR provision.
The differences are expected to make it difficult for the House and Senate
to reach a compromise by year's end, particularly since Republicans
can't count on any Democratic support. The tax bill presents difficulties
of its own for a GOP majority struggling to translate last fall's
election gains into this year's legislative achievements.
The Senate cleared a measure that calls for $60 billion in cuts over five
years.
The measure drew bipartisan support, passing on a vote of 64-33. Its
provisions would continue a series of existing tax breaks that otherwise will
expire and shelters 14 million upper middle-income families from higher
taxes.
The White House has threatened a veto, citing a provision that raises taxes
on oil companies.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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