House Republicans have made it a top priority this year to secure cuts to nearly every federal government program, spending months taking aim at welfare programs in order to allow millions of Americans to starve and languish. But in the latest draft of their 2024 spending bill that is moving through the chamber, Republicans are seeking to raise spending for one key group: themselves.
Under the legislative branch spending bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee last month, House members would receive a 4.6 percent pay raise, according to the Congressional Research Service, reports Roll Call. This would be an $8,000 raise over their current salaries of $174,000.
If Republicans get their way, the raise would come in a bill that otherwise cuts spending across the board except for defense, veterans’ care and border militarization — drastically decreasing funding for public programs and the social safety net.
This would include cuts to crucial anti-poverty programs like Social Security, Medicare, and free school lunches. It would also, according to a new draft of the labor, health and education funding bill released Thursday, eliminate federal funding for public health research on issues like firearm safety and ending HIV while slashing Education Department funding by 28 percent.
In other words, Republicans are seeking to quite literally enrich themselves while taking every move possible to cut benefits for the public, who they are supposed to serve.
Lawmakers typically include language blocking a cost-of-living increase for themselves in the budget bill, and the provision may still be added back in when the bill goes through the rest of the appropriations process. But the inclusion of the raise even further underscores the idea that Republicans don’t actually care about reducing government spending when it comes to issues that could help themselves or their wealthy allies.
House Legislative Branch Appropriations Chair Mark Amodei (R-Nevada) told Roll Call that it’s “not exactly greedy” to raise lawmakers’ salaries since the last time they were raised was 2009.
“The policy supports, hey, once every twelve years, you can have a cost-of-living increase,” Amodei said. “But the politics is — you know how that will go.”
Amodei and fellow Republicans don’t appear to subscribe to that same philosophy for millions of workers across the country.
Coincidentally, 2009 was also the last time that Congress raised the federal minimum wage, something that Republicans are staunchly opposed to. In fact, every day that Congress fails to do so extends the longest period in the history of the policy that the minimum wage hasn’t been raised — and the wage is at its lowest value in 67 years.
At a mere $7.25 an hour, a worker would have to work over 1,100 hours, or over half a year assuming a 40-hour work week, just in order to be paid the same amount as the raise that Republicans are seeking to give themselves next year.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.