After fattening the pockets of wealthy Americans and big corporations with tax cuts and deregulation during his four years in the White House, President Donald Trump is ramping up his assault on workers on his way out the door by backing the Senate GOP’s attempt to freeze the pay of civilian federal employees in 2021.
In a letter (pdf) earlier this week to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Trump’s budget director said that the White House “supports the policy in the bill to maintain for 2021 the current level of federal civilian employee pay,” pointing to “budgetary constraints and recent, pandemic-related impacts on non-federal labor markets.”
The letter by Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), was sent around three weeks after Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee proposed freezing the pay of federal workers in 2021 as part of their omnibus spending package.
The GOP […]