Most of the Congress please-please-pass bills that federal and postal workers, and retirees, are tracking aren’t going anywhere this year. That’s a sad fact of life in any presidential election year, but especially in this presidential election year.

Both the House and Senate have set up schedules that provide members plenty of time away from the office. The operative word is “plenty!”

At one time, those congressional time-outs were called “recess,” but about 30 years ago the Speaker of the House changed “recess” to “district work period.” He said it was to show that even though they weren’t working in Washington, they were working back home in their districts or states. As in listening to the voters.

Also “district work period” sounds better than “recess” which sounds like, well, recess.

In addition to working and campaigning back in their home districts, some members always managed to visit world trouble spots, like Paris, Hong Kong or the Bahamas during their time-outs.

This year the House returned to work Jan. 15 and the Senate came back on Jan 22. Not much happened pending the State of the Union address on Jan. 28. Both houses of Congress took extensive time off in January, February (Washington’s Birthday), and March. They were around a lot, Tuesday through Thursday, in April. May is Fridays off with a long (9-day) Memorial Day district work period .

They will be off about half of July, and most of August, through September 7. The Democratic convention is Aug. 25-28 and the Republican convention is September 1-4.

The House has targeted Sept. 26 as its adjournment date.

Bottom line, Congress has no time to lose, and it certainly isn’t going to lose it on the likes of feds and retirees.

Among the things that aren’t going to happen is the passage of the two bills to modify Social Security’s so-called “Evil Twins.” One of them (windfall) eats into the Social Security benefit that individuals retired under the old CSRS system expected. The other (offset) eliminates the spousal Social Security benefit of CSRS retirees.

Also on the not-happening list is a popular bill that would extend a significant tax break (enjoyed by active duty feds) to retirees. It’s called Premium Conversion. It lets workers, but not retirees, pay their health premiums with pre-tax dollars. That can save anywhere from $300 to just over $800 a year in taxes. That PC benefit stops when you retire. Fixing that problem has lots of support on Capitol Hill but time is running out.

And on and on.

The same for the bill that would encourage federal retirees to come back into government. It would allow them to get their full federal pay and their full annuity, but it’s not going to happen either. You can do the math, check out the congressional calendar by clicking here. (pdf)

Retiree COLA

For the latest in the COLA for retired feds, retired military personnel, their survivors and people who get Social Security benefits, click here.

The pay raise (amount still unknown) is still on target. And retirees will get their automatic cost of living adjustment on time. Both are effective in January of next year.

Nearly Useless Factoid

According to LiveScience, the world’s second most important commodity, after oil, is coffee. There’s no real reason I bring this up, other than I like coffee.

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.