Take The Money And Run

By Howard G. Chua-Eoan

Like most people, highly placed public servants yearn for fatter paychecks. Unlike most people, some of those public servants -- namely, Congressmen -- are in a position to vote raises for themselves. Or cuts. In the Depression year of 1932, a politically prudent concern for seemliness prompted Congress to slash its salaries 10%. That is not likely to happen in 1987. But as members of the 100th Congress weigh the very real financial needs of officials in all branches of Government, including themselves, they are painfully aware of how public sentiment is running. During a call-in poll last month, ABC television recorded 167,600 votes opposing proposed pay hikes for top Government officials, vs. only 5,800 favoring the raises.

To its acute discomfort, Congress must consider the recommendation submitted by President Reagan on Jan. 5 for $55 million in raises for the top 3,000 federal officials. The package would provide pay hikes of as much as 15.6% for Senators, Representatives, federal judges, Cabinet members and the Vice President.

The increases are far from unwarranted. In the past 17 years the purchasing power of these officials has fallen 41%, making Government service less attractive than ever to the nation's best and brightest. Some 40 federal judges have left the bench since 1980 for want of better pay. In Washington, public officials are surrounded by serious money. Senators are regularly interviewed by network correspondents who make ten times their salaries; $77,400-a-year Congressmen are under steady siege by Washington lawyers and lobbyists making $200,000 or more.

Still, Americans find it difficult to sympathize with public officials whose income is already five times the national average. Moreover, Consumer Activist Ralph Nader points out that Congress pocketed an automatic pay increase of $2,500 on Jan. 1; in the last session, the members voted themselves a $3,000 tax deduction on housing costs. So how do politicians find a politic way of giving themselves a raise? Under a law passed in 1985, if Congress simply does nothing, the new pay scale will automatically take effect on Feb. 5, a month after it was presented to the legislature. But the Senate, for one, has opted for bluster and the appearance of self-sacrifice. This week Majority Leader Robert Byrd promises to put the raises to a vote. Byrd also hopes to impose stricter limits on honorariums that can boost Senators' incomes by more than $30,000 a year.

The Senate can afford to reject the raises, since the increases cannot be stopped unless the House also votes to block them. The House will do nothing of the sort. Speaker Jim Wright's strategy of passive nonresistance has bipartisan support. Says Republican Leader Robert Michel: "There is no law requiring a vote." The relevant House committees have not even called for hearings on the raises.

The House might have found it more difficult to stand by in silence if Ronald Reagan had not pared down the even steeper increases recommended by a presidential commission. Those proposals, initially favored by Reagan, called for raises as high as 74% for Senators and Congressmen, probably well beyond the level of public tolerance. Unfortunately, the slimmed-down proposals gutted pay increases that would have helped stop talent from seeping out of the federal judicial system. Many judges feel betrayed by the cutback in their expected raises.

Congress remains nervous about the come-from-behind increases. Letters are pouring in protesting the planned duplicity, and Nader and several populist Congressmen expect to challenge the constitutionality of the raises if they are promulgated by default. For the legislators, the best thing about the pay boost is the timing: nearly two years before the next elections. After pocketing the money, Congress can only hope constituents forgive and forget.

CHART: TEXT NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: NO CREDIT

CAPTION: Federal Salaries

DESCRIPTION: Color: current and proposed salaries of Cabinet members, Congress, and District-court judges.

With reporting by Hays Gorey/Washington