Panel’s Proposal of 50% Pay Hikes Stirs Protests : Top Federal Officials Could Get Raises Without Vote in Congress; Ban on Honorariums Urged

A White House commission recommended Tuesday a whopping 50% pay increase for members of Congress, federal judges and other top-level officials, touching off sharp criticism of a “salary grab” that could take effect without a vote by the House or Senate.

The panel also urged that any salary boost be linked to a total ban on honorariums, payments by special interest groups to lawmakers for speeches or writings. This form of outside income is now allowed within limits by congressional rules.

Under the proposed pay scale, the salaries of members of Congress would be raised from $89,500 to $135,000 a year, with the same increase for federal district judges. Cabinet members would go from $99,500 to $155,000 and the vice president would get a boost from $115,000 to $175,000 a year, the same as the chief justice.

The commission recommended that the President’s annual salary be increased from $200,000 to $350,000, effective in 1993, since there is a constitutional ban against increasing the chief executive’s pay during his term of office.

The proposal, which will be delivered to President Reagan on Thursday for his approval, modification or rejection, was endorsed unanimously by the Quadrennial Commission on Executive, Legislative and Judicial Salaries as essential to offset the impact of inflation.

Reagan, who has supported federal pay increases for top officials in the past, was believed to be sympathetic to the thinking behind the recommendations.

Without any raise, the commission said, the buying power of top federal officials’ pay will have eroded by 35% during the last two decades.

Automatic Approval

Under the law creating the so-called “Quad commission,” the President’s pay recommendation will be submitted Jan. 9 with his budget message to Congress. It will automatically take effect unless both the House and Senate disapprove it within 30 days.

While opponents may try to force a showdown vote on the issue, the short time for congressional action and the support that the measure has among both chambers’ leadership may thwart their efforts.

Nevertheless, critics unleashed angry opening shots at the proposal shortly after it was disclosed.

“I don’t think it’s justified,” said Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.), who vowed to fight the move. “. . . Public service should be attractive for reasons other than money.”

Rep. Tom Tauke (R-Iowa) told a news conference that he believes that there will be a “groundswell of criticism” of the increases and said that he would try to force a vote on them.

Consumer activist Ralph Nader termed the raises “the biggest salary grab in U.S. history” and said it would lead to a “maharajah Congress” out of touch with ordinary Americans who earn far less.

Only a storm of taxpayer complaints, he said, would persuade Congress to turn down a plan that would raise their salaries and the pay of other top officials to levels four or five times that of many ordinary American workers.

Government statistics for 1987 showed that the average family income was $30,200 last year, often representing the pay of more than one breadwinner. The average pay of wage and salary workers, excluding supervisors and executives, was $17,108.

Commission Chairman Lloyd Cutler, a prominent Washington lawyer and former adviser to President Jimmy Carter, defended the size of the increases as necessary to restore the buying power of executive and congressional salaries and to keep qualified people on the federal bench and in top government posts.

Cutler said that the overall cost of the proposed increase would be relatively small--about $128 million in the next fiscal year--and added: “These numbers are probably no more than what gets spilled at the Pentagon every day.”

Current salary levels are so low, Cutler said, that federal judges are “leaving in droves” and the National Institutes of Health cannot attract top scientists because federal workers’ pay is held down under a formula linked to congressional pay.

Robert D. Raven, president of the American Bar Assn., backed the recommended raises for federal judges, saying: “This nation must not allow inadequate salaries to undermine the judiciary.”

Asks Ban on Payments

Fred Wertheimer, president of the citizens’ group Common Cause, endorsed the pay increases on condition that special interest groups’ payments to lawmakers for speaking or writing be totally forbidden.

“Full-time public officials should be compensated fully and adequately by the public they serve,” Wertheimer said. “They should not be compensated by private interests seeking access and influence.

“We realize that the salary increases recommended by the commission are large,” Wertheimer added. “But it is also important to recognize that these amounts are intended to make up for the many years in which Congress was incapable of enacting appropriate increases for itself or other top-level officials.”

Honorariums are limited to $26,850 for members of the House and $35,800 for senators, but in both cases the recommended $45,500 annual increase would exceed those amounts that would be forsworn.

The commission’s proposal also drew opposition from the National Taxpayers’ Union, a private nonpartisan group, on grounds that it would be a bad signal at a time when government efforts should concentrate on reducing the federal budget deficit.

“President Reagan should ignore these outrageous recommendations,” said David Keating, executive vice president of the organization. “This scheme was designed to fool the voters and enrich the Congress.”

Nader said that congressional salaries have risen sharply from $60,000 in 1981 to the current $89,500 on top of generous pensions, health care and life insurance benefits.

“During this same period, Congress has repeatedly refused to legislate an increase in the minimum wage of $3.35 an hour, or $6,700 annually,” he said.