Pay raises for lawmakers
The bill that Trump torpedoed would have provided lawmakers with their first pay raise since 2009.
Both Republican and Democrat leaders had agreed to include the language, which would have allowed members to receive an automatic cost-of-living adjustment to their base salaries of $174,000 per year, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.
This would have been a change to current practice, in which Congress takes steps in each spending bill to remove that cost-of-living adjustment. That has been in place since the 2009 recession.
The agreement also would have allowed members of Congress to opt-out of Affordable Care Act health coverage — a requirement that infuriated some GOP lawmakers — and would have let them enroll in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
