Senate Republicans have come up with a plan to help pay for President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful” budget bill by hiking retirement contributions for pretty much everyone but themselves.
The latest draft of the bill requires federal employees to contribute 15.6 percent of their salaries to their retirement, up from the 4.4 percent that employees hired after 2014 currently contribute and the 9.4 percent included in the original version of the budget bill, Politico reported.
Republicans are trying to pass the bill via the reconciliation process—a process by which different versions of a bill in the Senate and House of Representatives are “reconciled.” The process allows the proposed legislation to bypass the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats.
The draft reconciliation text conveniently includes a carve-out exempting members of Congress and their staff from the higher rates, according to Politico. Federal law enforcement would also be exempt from the new contributions, along with a proposed 10 percent fee on union dues deductions.
The Republican budget bill narrowly passed the House in May and is now under consideration in the Senate.
The GOP has been scrambling to find ways to offset massive tax cuts projected to largely benefit the wealthiest Americans, including proposing changes to Medicaid that would cause millions of people to lose their health insurance and would shutter rural hospitals.
Trump has demanded Republicans unite around the bill—which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated would add $2.4 trillion to the deficit—and send it to him for signature by July 4. Deep disagreements, however, remain.
A previous budget plan would have required members of Congress and their aides to share in any changes to the pension contributions, according to Politico.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which was responsible for the changes. A spokesperson for Paul’s office declined to comment to Politico on the bill’s specifics.
The committee had previously tried to dramatically restructure the federal workforce and its pension program, but Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined the provisions violated the Byrd rule, which limits what can be included in the reconciliation process.
Democrats have warned that changing the pension contributions would make public service a less attractive and viable career path, degrading the quality of the civil service.
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