Debt Bill Denies Annual Pay Hike for Congress

Congress on Wednesday moved to deny itself a pay raise.

It would mark the sixth consecutive year that lawmakers will have acted to make sure they don't get the annual cost-of-living pay increase they get automatically unless they vote to freeze their pay.

The measure was attached to the compromise debt and spending measure on track to pass Congress late Wednesday.

Members of Congress make $174,000 a year and are supposed to get an annual pay raise under a 1989 law that traded an annual COLA for a ban on the much-criticized practice of taking paid honoraria for making speeches.

But Congress has voted to deny itself the raise about as many times as it's opted to take the pay hike, and with their poll numbers in the gutter currently, it's not surprising that they're doing so again.

It's not clear how much next year's pay hike would have been. A spokesman for the House's chief administrative officer did not know the figure. Social Security recipients are expected to receive a cost-of-living hike of about 1.5 percent next year.