Lawmakers Want Freeze Frozen at One Year

A group of Washington-area lawmakers, who represent thousands of federal employees, are making a move to take President Obama's proposal for a two-year federal pay freeze one year at a time.

The Washington Post's Joe Davidson reports that a group of eight legislators have sent a letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., requesting that if the House takes up a bill to freeze federal salaries, that its action be limited to next year's pay rates, not to a freeze in 2012 as well.

Arguing that federal employees provide vital services and are actually underpaid relative to their private sector counterparts, the lawmakers write, "we therefore believe that any adjustment to federal compensation should be reviewed on an annual basis. ... We ask that any adjustments to federal pay beyond FY2011 be reserved for the 112th Congress, where federal pay can be considered in the context of a more comprehensive approach to deficit reduction."

That approach may be designed to limit the effects of the freeze and hold open the possibility that feds actually see an increase in 2012, but it also looks like a tacit acknowledgment that a 2011 freeze is all but inevitable.