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WASHINGTON – The Trump administration announced Friday night that it would freeze a pay rise for Vice President Mike Pence, cabinet members and other senior politicians, in light of the government's partial closure .
Senior officials were in a position to receive an increase of about $ 10,000 a year – which was to come into effect on Saturday – as 800,000 federal public servants entered their third week without pay.
The increases were the result of Congress's inability to renew its long-standing mandate. freeze of reminders for senior officials and political representatives. An extension of the freeze has been included in the expenditure bills financing several government agencies on which it was not implemented before the expiry of the 115th Congress on Thursday.
But on Friday night, the Office of Personnel Management announced that it would be prudent for agencies to continue paying these top politicians at the frozen rate until a promulgation of a supply law that clarify the status of the freeze.
The decision was made during an unexpected optical problem for the Trump administration: While Correctional Officers, Transportation Security Administration Officers and the other federal employees work unpaid during the government shutdown. Mr. Pence's annual salary would have increased from $ 230,700 to $ 243,500. Secretaries of Cabinet who received $ 199,700 a year would have seen their annual salary rise to $ 210,700. It also occurred after The Washington Post reported potential increases
The administration appeared to be aware of the perception problem and was trying to avoid it. At his press conference on Friday, he stated that he "might consider this".
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House Press Secretary, went on to explain that the administration was considering preventing this from being implemented while federal employees are on leave "and described the situation as" another unnecessary by-product of closure "which, according to her, could be corrected by Congress.
Guidelines issued Friday night by Margaret Weichert, Acting Director of Personnel Management Office, said that the freezing of salaries of some politicians in 2018 would be "generally applicable in the implementation of the wage freeze in 2019. "Weichert said in her memo that her department would propose new guidelines if the Congress met.
Democratic legislators, who are in a deadlock with Mr. Trump on his vow not to reopen the government without funding for A wall along the southwestern border, earlier Friday, put pressure on the Trump administration, criticizing the potential for increase.
The North Carolina representative, David E. Price, described the increase in salaries of senior officials at a hypocrisy. Representative Nita M. Lowey of New York said the bill passed Thursday by the House to reopen the government would also block what she described as "lavish raises."
This bill, however, is considered a non-starter in the Republican-controlled Senate. The Government Accountability Office had also received questions as to whether the increases could go ahead, but had answered that the question was, until now, an unresolved legal issue, according to one person familiar with the conversation.
The leaders of some unions representing federal employees blamed Mr. Trump for their lack of empathy for the financial problems of federal employees who had not been paid during the closure. At his press conference on Friday, Mr. Trump confirmed that he had told congressional leaders that he was willing to keep the government closed, potentially "for a very long time, or even months, or even years".
Freezing Negotiations Salary increases for senior officials are a measure initiated by House Republicans in 2013, under the Obama administration, as part of a bill on services financial. Under this provision, the rates of pay for high-ranking officials would be frozen, even if the timetable for federal pay increases would increase. This law has been renewed every year since.
Last March, the Republicans tried to end the freeze, but the Democrats had managed to keep it.
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