Congressional pay freeze gains momentum

Lawmakers and budget watchdogs who support stopping an
automatic pay raise for Congress next year see President Obama’s decision to
freeze the salaries of top White House staffers as a huge boon to their cause.

“I hope it gives Congress a nudge because I think it
really shows that the president understands what people are going through and
that we all have the responsibility to tighten our belts,” said Rep. Harry
Mitchell (D-Ariz.), who sponsored a bill that would deny lawmakers the
automatic pay raise they receive every year.

{mosads}As one of his first acts as president, Obama pledged to
freeze the salaries of more than 100 staffers in his administration making more
than $100,000 per year.

“Across the country, families are tightening their belts
in this economic crisis, and so should Washington,” Obama said in a press
release last week.

Mitchell sponsored a similar bill last year, but the
measure, which attracted 34 cosponsors, failed to make it out of committee. As
a result, members received an automatic $4,700 pay raise at the beginning of
this year.

But with 82 cosponsors so far this year, and Obama’s
parallel move in the White House, Mitchell is optimistic that his bill will
pass if it makes it out of committee.

“I can’t imagine (anyone would vote against it),” he
said. “Every time (members) go home and they listen to constituents, they’re
going to come back and we’re going to have bigger numbers of cosponsors.”

Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group, also
sees Obama’s move as “adding fuel to the fire” of Mitchell’s bill to halt the
salary increase next year.

“It’s clearly talking about government officials that are recognizing
that there are difficult times out there and they’re going to freeze the
salaries, and I think that is definitely a gauntlet thrown down or a challenge
for Congress to go in the same direction,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of
the group, which has long supported the measure.

Freezing congressional
salaries is hardly a new idea on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers have floated
similar proposals in every year dating back to 1995 — and periodically, long
before that. Though the concept of forgoing a raise has attracted some support
from more senior members, it is most popular with freshman lawmakers, who are
often most vulnerable.

In 2006, after the
Republican-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Democrats, who
had just come to power in the House with a slew of freshmen, vowed to block
their own pay raise until the wage increase was passed. The minimum wage was
eventually increased and lawmakers received their automatic pay hike.

Mitchell does not fear that
Democrats, with majorities in both the House and Senate and a Democratic
president, will get complacent and fail to realize that they could be voted out
of office in two years if they don’t act to halt their pay raise.

“There should not be a
comfort level just because we won the presidency,” Mitchell said. “We ought to
take the lead of the president. Here he is, showing that he understands what
people are going through and telling people in Washington that we should
tighten our belts like everybody else. I think we need to follow his
leadership.”

Though Mitchell has not
gotten a firm timeframe for when the bill will be brought before committee,
watchdogs see the country’s economic situation as being so dire that the
measure, unlike in the past, will be put to a vote this year.

“I think there will pressure
on Congress and it will be hard for them to ignore it, so I do think something
will happen,” Ellis said. “I don’t think they will be able to avoid it.”