Congress’ Pay Immune to Sequestration, Budget Cuts

That dirty word – sequestration – means that on Friday, billions will be automatically cut from the federal budget.

It’s Congress’ fault that many government employees will take forced furloughs, air travel will get slower, and hundreds of thousands of children won’t get vaccines that prevent disease, among many other unpleasant things.

But, amazingly, the Constitutional amendment preventing Congress from raising its own pay too often will also keep them safe from an immediate pay cut.

Oh, their offices will be affected and some staff could be laid off, but the officials themselves won’t be participating in the mandatory national effort to reduce spending they started. The president also will not take a pay cut.

USA Today reports every representative in the House has an office budget of roughly $1.5 million a year, or more. There are 435 of them. (The story doesn’t mention what Senators’ offices get, but there’s 100 of those, too.)