Bush Endorses House Plan to Boost Salaries, Tighten Ethics, Foley Says

President Bush will back a plan to raise salaries for members of Congress and other top government officials by more than a third while tightening up ethics rules, the Speaker of the House said today.

Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) told reporters that agreement with the Administration had been reached and that a statement from the President would be released. White House officials confirmed that privately in advance of the statement.

With the President’s endorsement, House leaders formally unveiled their plan and scheduled a vote Thursday.

The package would raise salaries from $89,500 to almost $125,000 in just over 13 months and impose new ethics rules on the amount and type of members’ outside income.

The plan would apply to top officials governmentwide, except for the Senate, which was considering a separate ethics and pay package for itself.

The House package implements the pay raise in two stages. On Jan. 1, members would get a 7.9% increase as a “cost-of-living” adjustment to make up for the two years in which members did not receive raises.

In 1991, a 25% raise would take effect and the teeth of the ethics package would kick in--a ban on lawmakers padding their income with speech honorariums and stricter limits on other outside income.

Currently, House members are allowed to keep honorariums up to 30% of their income, Senate members up to 40%. The new rules would ban accepting honorariums and limit other outside earned income to 15% of salary.

If Congress later votes to kill the pay raise, the ethics changes on outside income would automatically be rescinded.

Other ethics changes in the bill include:

--Ending in 1993 the rule whereby House members elected before 1980 can pocket their campaign treasuries when they retire from Congress. Some members currently have more than $1 million stashed away.

--Increased detail of disclosure of personal wealth.

Currently, the top category is “$250,000 and above.” The new forms would have categories for “$250,000 to $500,000” and “greater than $1 million.” Members who have blind trusts for their assets would have to report the size of the trust, in addition to the current requirement of reporting the income.

--Revised procedures for the House Ethics Committee, including expanding the panel so that some members could investigate and others judge the results. Currently, the whole panel does both.