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.

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