The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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While many federal workers go without pay and the government is partially shut down, hundreds of senior Trump political appointees are scheduled to receive annual raises of about $10,000 a year.
The pay raises for Cabinet secretaries, deputy secretaries, top administrators and even Vice President Mike Pence are scheduled to go into effect beginning today without legislation to stop them, according to documents issued by the Office of Personnel Management and experts in federal pay.
The pay of Pence is scheduled to rise from $230,700 to $243,500. He told reporters Friday that he would turn down the raise.
It was unclear whether the White House had the authority to stop the increases.
President Donald Trump was asked by a reporter Friday whether he would consider halting the raises during the shutdown.
“I might consider that,”Trump said.“That’s a very good question.”
The raises appear to be an unintended consequence of the shutdown: When lawmakers failed to pass bills on Dec. 21 to fund multiple federal agencies, they allowed an existing pay freeze to lapse. Congress enacted a law capping pay for top federal executives in 2013 and renewed it each year. The raises will occur because that cap will expire without legislative action by today, allowing raises that have accumulated over those years but never took effect to kick in.