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Trump, GOP move to freeze federal civilian workers’ pay
His move, supported by House Republicans, comes just months after they passed a $1.4 trillion tax giveaway to corporations and the wealthy, which has failed to create jobs or raise wages.
In a letter to Congress announcing the pay freeze on Thursday, Trump wrote: “We must maintain efforts to put our nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases.”
The freeze would deny roughly 1.8 million people a cost-of-living pay increase next year, Politico reports. The Senate has already backed a 1.9% pay raise for civilian federal employees this year, but House Republicans have approved their own spending bill that endorses the White House’s pay freeze. Most civilian workers are slated to receive a 2.1% increase under a years-old government formula.
Trump’s move comes a just months after he signed a tax bill that, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, gives the largest benefits to the highest income households and raises the federal debt by $7.2 trillion in this decade and by $20.9 trillion by 2036.
“This is a direct attack on public servants,” responded AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “Handing $1.5 trillion to corporations as they ship jobs overseas is fiscally unsustainable, not paying those who serve our country every day.”