Elimination of 2013 Pay Adjustment
Floor Speech
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Good-paying, full-time jobs should not be limited to those fortunate enough to work for the Federal Government.
At a time when hardworking American taxpayers are struggling to find work and keep their heads above water, the Federal Government offers its workforce sufficient and generous pay and job security. This is not to imply that they're overpaid. This is not to imply that they're overcompensated. That's a discussion for another day.
But certainly, at a time in which the American people saw their household income drop by $4,000, that has not happened in the Federal workforce. Year after year, the Federal workforce has received step increases and other pay increases. And with the exception of a relatively limited pay freeze done under President Obama's executive order, they, in fact, have received consistent pay increases and their benefits have been maintained.
At this time, we are faced with sequestration. Sequestration for our men and women in uniform means aircraft do not fly, ships do not get maintained, and, yes, furloughs may very well happen. To avoid furloughs, to avoid arbitrarily cutting the most junior individuals or stripping away our military's ability to protect us, it is a small price to pay to, consistent with the President's previous pay freeze, to hold pay increases of Federal employees for one more year.
It is my sincere hope that, working together, we will both resolve the budget shortfalls and get America working again over the next year. But at a time when most--a great many--of the average Federal workers make more than their private sector counterparts, when a great many make more than $100,000 a year, at a time in which Members of Congress, appropriately, have frozen their own pay year after year, it is a price that we have the authority--and we ask the Federal workforce to agree with us that in fact this is a year not to raise the pay of Federal workers. Last year, we spent $11 billion on non-merit pay increases for Federal workers. It's the right time to say no increases other than those specifically deemed by specific merits under statute are important.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle will not agree with this, I have no doubt. But let me say one thing. I know that Mr. Cummings and I do agree that we have to find viable alternatives to stripping away the capability of our military to maintain our safety. We have to find viable alternatives to cutting the important work on medicines and other lifesaving Federal programs that in fact our seniors and all of our citizens rely on. We could do this today, or we could cut the National Institutes of Health. We could do this today, or we could park two or three of our aircraft carriers and lay off the crews. I don't think the other side has any question that a viable alternative to those kinds of across-the-board cuts are clearly important.
So I ask the minority to join with me today in realizing that this is not what we want to do. This is what we need to do if we're going to prevent arbitrary cuts that in fact will touch Americans, in many cases, in all the wrong ways.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The loyal opposition is entitled to their opinion but they're not entitled to their facts. Let's go through some facts.
The ranking member may not remember January 1. I know it was a long time ago--over a month. On January 1, with the President's blessing and insistence, we raised the taxes on the highest income producers and on family businesses by 5 percent on their ordinary income and by 5 percent on their capital gains. Capital gains would be a 33 percent increase, from 15 to 20 percent.
These were not small increases. These were huge. I didn't vote for them. My ranking member did. I didn't vote for them because in fact the President deliberately said, Oh, no, we're not going to touch anything else in taxes, except to stick it to the rich. And he did. And this body did. That was a decision. But I hope my ranking member will remember that a month ago and a few days we had a huge tax increase--of the President's choosing.
It had been offered up by Republicans to work together to find loopholes, but that was rejected in favor of a stick-it-to-the-rich tax increase that he chose.
There was $500 billion worth of revenue that would have been generated per year--$5 trillion over 10 years--if the President had been willing to go back to Bill Clinton-level taxes on all. He was not. So it is the height of hypocrisy to come in 30 days--actually, in about 1 day--and begin talking about the next round of tax increases on a relatively limited group of our population, the 1 percent or 3 percent, and in fact start reducing their ability to have working capital for new oil exploration, for new natural gas exploration, the things that the President, just a few days ago, standing in front of where you are today, lauded as great. We're becoming oil self-sufficient. We are natural gas self-sufficient. We are, in fact, able to move to cleaner fuels for our energy.
But let's break something else down. My opponent--and I keep saying opponent, he's my ranking member, but he is the loyal opposition here--he talks about $100 billion. I think we need to break it down. That's $100 billion over 10 years. It's not even $10 billion in the first year. His $100 billion of sacrifices, many of those sacrifices won't even occur because people aren't going to necessarily be here for all 10 years, because next year or the year after, this Congress might be able to increase pay to make up for what we have to hold back this year. We may have that good time and good employment and good ability to do that, and I would join with the Member to try to find that way.
But the fact is what actually is being asked to be given up by the typical Federal worker--the one that the President is calling such a huge sacrifice--is $274 per employee per year.
With that, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Ross), who has been a leader on this issue and who understands the hardworking men and women of the Federal workforce and why this is necessary.
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I said earlier, and now I have to repeat it, the other side is entitled to their opinion but not their facts.
Mr. Speaker, that's the number. Almost half a million out of 2 million of our Federal workforce receive over $100,000, but the gentleman from Massachusetts chose to pick a GS-3. Okay, fine. This is an entry-level, unskilled position. But let's understand something. It still pays better than the minimum wage job that you're hoping to get in some cases, and it pays more than an awful lot of jobs out there. As a matter of fact, it pays about the average for somebody who has no special skills coming in. But we won't even debate that. We won't debate any of that.
Let's have the facts, the truth. That woman receives a step increase every year. She has gotten a pay increase every year, like the rest of most of the workforce. As a 3 level, she's getting a step increase. So to say that she didn't get a pay raise is just not true. If my colleague from Massachusetts were better informed, he would have said that himself rather than leaving that fact out of the pay raise that was achieved, because step increases occur even during pay freezes.
With that, I will yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins).
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Mr. ISSA. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, again the facts speak louder than the rhetoric. The .4 percent is less than a quarter of the exit rate in the Federal workforce of the private sector, one of the reasons people in the private sector are fighting to figure out how to get a job that pays better. This is our exit in the public sector.
They're not leaving because they weren't paid enough. There's no draconian cuts.
Mr. CLAY. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. ISSA. Not any more than your Member did.
The fact is this is the truth, and the facts speak louder. Only 22 percent of the Federal workforce believes that their pay is linked to performance. Of course the Federal workforce doesn't like not getting $274 more for the remainder of this year. Neither do I.
Mr. CLAY. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. ISSA. You'll have your time.
Mr. CLAY. I don't have time.
Mr. ISSA. The fact is we have a problem, and the problem is everyone wants to call a total of about $1 billion of not increases as somehow draconian.
The .4 percent, they're not leaving the workforce. That's the important thing.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to myself.
It is the minority's job to find facts that, in fact, we may not have said. I appreciate them doing that rather than flinging opinions and statements about people's intent.
Mr. Ross stood here, though, and he told us facts. And he has a bill, a Simpson-Bowles-type bill that is comprehensive. He isn't just here picking facts. He picked apart Simpson-Bowles and put together a comprehensive savings bill that, in fact, was modeled after Simpson-Bowles. If he were here, I would have given him time to say just that, because he's a leader in our Congress.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ISSA. I yield myself just 1 minute.
I know the gentleman didn't mean to when he was talking about Maya, but he did say that her pay has been frozen for 10 years. I'm sure he meant 2 years and, if we enact this, a third year. Mr. Wolf is a dedicated servant of this country, but he did say a couple of things that I'd like to touch on.
First of all, when we talk about the men and women of Congress and when they say they do it for the right reasons--they do it because they care--we're doing it with 11.5 percent less money in the House on both sides of the aisle. So, in fact, in many cases, we're paying the same or less than we were paying before. We've made those cuts. The Federal workforce has not seen an 11.5 percent reduction in actual dollars spent, but our offices have made those cuts under the Speaker's leadership.
Lastly, I certainly believe when we talk about Walter Reed that we should include what the commander of Walter Reed told me on Monday of this week, and that was that he is now in the process of planning whom to let go.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. ISSA. I yield myself an additional 15 seconds.
He, in fact, is in a situation--a commander there, a two-star--of dealing with the possibility of furloughing for a 20 percent reduction. With the number he has been given, he cannot possibly maintain the same level of care for those men and women--those wounded warriors and those veterans. It will be devastating if we do not find ways to deal with alternatives.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.
Mr. ISSA. I yield myself an additional 10 seconds.
I was at Walter Reed. Walter Reed has a problem, and this is a small part of the solution. Every man and woman at Walter Reed would rather have a pay freeze than, in fact, see people disappear from their rolls and not be able to service the needs of those people.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ISSA. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The gentleman from New Jersey is right. He is right when he said that we, in fact, have to make these tough decisions. This isn't freezing the pay of our men and women in uniform, and perhaps we should scrutinize in detail as to the station chiefs and the others in harm's way their combat pay, their special hazard pay and so on. We held a hearing on Benghazi, and we were very aware that, in fact, they weren't paid enough to die for their country needlessly because we didn't do the right thing. I have no doubt about it.
I represent Camp Pendleton. The marines of Camp Pendleton--the First Marine Expeditionary Force--have deployed more than anybody. They have been in Iraq, they have been in Afghanistan, and they have been on those FOBs. In fact, we need to make sure we support them. That's the reason we're looking for alternatives to sequestration every day, and we would love to have people on the other side of the aisle.
So, when we talk about the men and women in harm's way, it's not, in fact, those in the towers helping to get our planes safely landed, and it's not the people inspecting our food. We have to make tough choices, and I join with anyone who wants to make tough choices on behalf of those in harm's way. Let's remember that we are talking here of the vast majority. These are Federal civil servants who, in fact, are paid pretty darned well, who are not leaving, and we are asking for a small sacrifice.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ISSA. I yield myself 30 seconds.
Earlier there was a statement made about a nurse making $27,000. After checking, we discovered that's a nurse's assistant. I think it is important to understand that a nurse at the Veterans Administration would make a lot more. A nursing assistant is paid a modest salary, $27,000, plus probably another 10 or $11,000 in direct benefits. It's still more than the national average for somebody with that skill level. It is still a steady job, and it still would have had a step increase.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to close.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas was right. The President signed sequestration; the President asked for sequestration; the President negotiated sequestration; and the President has had from this body alternatives to sequestration repeatedly. The minority in this body has not offered viable alternatives to sequestration. The Democratic majority in the Senate has done nothing to block sequestration.
Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield on that point?
Mr. ISSA. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. HOYER. Is the gentleman aware that 2 weeks ago and this week the majority has denied us the opportunity to offer an alternative?
Mr. ISSA. I'm not aware of that, but this is not a new bill. You've had alternatives in the past.
Mr. Speaker, I noticed that I was closing, and I do believe the other side is completely out of time; is that correct?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time of the gentleman from Maryland has expired.
Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I close, I think it is important that we take Mr. Hoyer's very words.
First of all, he said ``Mr. President'' before ``Mr. Speaker,'' which got me to remind myself that the President is responsible for sequestration, something we're trying to avoid. The President has offered no viable alternative to sequestration. The President avoided $5 trillion worth of new revenue because he wanted to say he was only sticking it to the rich or, as Mr. Hoyer would say, those people who earn more money in 10 minutes than this amount.
The thing that I want everyone to understand that the gentleman from Maryland said that is so right, this is only a quarter of a percent. He's right, this is a very small amount. It's $1 billion total over the Federal workforce for the remainder of this fiscal year. And over the last 2 years, this is how much the increase has been: $3,328 or about $1,500, $1,600 a year is how much the Federal workforce has got in a pay increase while they were under a freeze.
The reason it's only a quarter of a percent when you see about a 5 percent increase in the last 2 years in actual compensation is the Federal workforce system, Mr. Speaker, includes basically automatic step increases for the vast majority of employees, meaning so many people who talked about how this was being devastating are forgetting the fact that while the American worker got little or no pay increase, the American family saw a reduction in their actual revenue, the Federal workforce enjoyed 2 1/2 percent increases while under a freeze. And, yes, Mr. Speaker, they will get another 2 1/2 percent increase this year even though we forego this one-quarter percent automatic pay increase.
That's the amazing thing that can only happen here in Washington is people can come and talk about devastation, great sacrifice, a willingness to sacrifice, but not so much. Well, in fact, every year that dedicated employee, the GS-3 there as a nurse assistant, she got this kind of an increase year after year after year, even during a pay freeze.
We're not here to talk today about the dedicated men and women both in and out of uniform, but we have. And I want to commend all of those men and women who serve our country. But I want to commend them while saying that this is a small sacrifice. As Mr. Hoyer said, as the whip, the Democratic whip, a representative of the party of the President, this third-year pay freeze called for initially by the President, in fact, is not an absence of increases--the increases are significant to anyone listening in America. These are real increases they're getting while we're foregoing in this bill a quarter of a percent.
So I want to thank the Democratic whip. He made it very, very clear that, in fact, this is miniscule. To him, $1 billion, $11 billion over 10 years, is not enough to even spend 2 days of the Congress on. And perhaps he's right; perhaps we should have done much more. Perhaps this small amount, this incredibly small amount, $274 on an average employee for the remainder of this fiscal year, is too little to pick up.
But if it's too little to bother with, isn't it also too little to have so much opposition to? The fact is, and the facts are stubborn, this is a small reduction in what would otherwise be a significant increase that they're going to get anyway.
So, Mr. Speaker, as I urge my colleagues to vote for this, I remind them that we have asked for this time and time again, that the President has not seen fit to keep up his own request, the President has not, in fact, been aware or willing to deal with the rest of the increases. He takes credit for what you would call a small quarter percent reduction and calls it a freeze.
Well, the Federal workforce received a good compensation. The fact is when you go from $69,000 for a typical or median income of Federal workers, to $72,000 during the period of a pay freeze, it reminds me of a can of soda--that when you freeze it, it doesn't change, but the can ruptures because it has swelled.
We have increased the actual compensation, of payroll compensation, to the Federal workforce by an average of $3,300 during a time in which the American people are told there's a freeze. And we will increase their pay an average of about $1,600 during this freeze if it becomes law.
So, Mr. Speaker, this is small, as the whip said. It is so small that I call on the members of the loyal opposition to be the kind of Democratic Party that understands that this is so small that they certainly should vote for it. It is not a great sacrifice; it is a very small sacrifice. Every Federal worker eligible for step increases will see compensation increases, an average of $1,600 this year, when we're only foregoing $274.
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At a time like this the President and Congress must face reality.
We cannot keep spending money that we do not have.
H.R. 273 stops an $11 billion expense for non-merit based raises that has no business moving forward.
The economy is struggling, hard-working taxpayers are suffering--it is fundamentally wrong to reward government workers while everyone else is trying to make ends meet.
The idea of giving raises to government workers at a time like this highlights how out-of-touch Washington has become with the rest of the country.
The truth is government pay and classification systems, many designed in the 1940s, lack the flexibility needed to keep pace with the current work environment and demands.
That is why the President's top pay advisors continue to point to the need for reform.
The numbers don't lie. Once people get a government job, they rarely leave it.
The private sector quit rate is 4 1/2 times higher than that of the federal sector.
Moving fully to a merit-based pay system would give agencies needed flexibility to use appropriated funds to better compensate our hardest working federal employees and attract those with critical skills.
The responsible conversation we should be having is about pay reform, not across-the-board raises with no measure of performance.
Simpson Bowles recommended a three year pay freeze.
Anyone who claims to be serious about reducing the debt and reigning in Washington's out-of-control spending could not in good conscience support this $11 billion spending measure.
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With that, I urge support for this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this short-sighted, unnecessary, and ill-conceived bill. H.R. 273 imposes yet another pay freeze on federal employees, many of whom have not seen a cost of living adjustment in over two years. The men and women who have dedicated their careers to public service--the majority of whom earn middle-class wages--have already made sacrifices in pay and benefits totaling more than $100 billion to help reduce our Nation's debt.
Federal employees in several sectors already earn less than their private-sector counterparts. These are the men and women who care for our veterans, keep our airplanes flying and ensure our food is safe to eat. They work in every Congressional district, from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to the Department of Veterans Affairs in Providence. In fact, 85 percent of federal employees live outside of the Washington, DC, area, with 18,000 located in my home state of Rhode Island.
Not only does this bill prevent hard-working federal employees from receiving a modest pay adjustment in an attempt to keep pace with the rising cost of living, it sends the unfortunate message to bright young people that they will not be valued if they choose a career in public service. At this time of national crisis, when we are facing so many challenges, we should be encouraging the brightest minds in the country to help solve these problems.
I support and have cosponsored the bill introduced by Mr. CUMMINGS and Mr. CONNOLLY to extend the pay freeze for members of Congress. But just because I do not believe this body deserves a pay raise does not mean we must also punish the talented men and women who have dedicated their careers to supporting the United States of America.
It's time to get serious about moving this country forward. We only have five legislative days left until automatic budget cuts go into effect, costing us a projected 750,000 jobs this year alone and threatening to plunge our economy back into a recession. Instead of dealing with the looming sequester, House Republicans have us voting on a bill that has no chance of passing the Senate, and then sending us home for a week-long recess.
I have already co-signed a letter urging Speaker BOEHNER to keep members in Washington until we have averted the impending across-the-board spending cuts and put our budget on a fiscally sustainable path. I repeat that message again today: Mr. Speaker, it is time to stop with these phony messaging bills and get to work.
I urge my colleagues to join me in rejecting this unnecessary bill and bringing up legislation that will actually address our immediate fiscal problems. Our constituents are counting on us to act, and we must not let them down.
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