Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) voted with Democrats against the Oversight Committee Republicans’ budget reconciliation markup, which would cut pensions and take-home pay for federal workers in an effort to reduce the national deficit by $50 billion over the next 10 years.
After a six-hour markup, Republicans passed the budget reconciliation bill by a vote of 22-21.
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Under the Oversight Committee’s budget resolution, federal workers will be required to increase their contributions to the Federal Employees Retirement System to 4.4%, which is projected to increase revenues by $30.7 billion. However, the increase in expected contributions could significantly reduce the take-home pay for federal employees. Federal workers making under $28,000 a year would lose $1,000 in take-home pay due to increased employee contributions, and those making $162,000 would lose $5,800 in take-home pay.
In addition, another provision of the legislation would mandate that new federal employees contribute an additional 5% of their paychecks to FERS. Failure to comply would mean that new employees would work as at-will employees.
In his opening remarks, Turner criticized his colleagues for seeking to change pensions during the middle of federal workers’ careers.
“I don’t believe it represents Republican values or American values,” Turner said. “I believe making changes to pension benefits in the middle of employment is wrong. Employee benefits are not a gift. They are earned.”
In January, Turner was removed as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). Speculation arose that Turner was removed because he was at odds with President Donald Trump over how to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. However, Johnson denied that Turner’s removal was influenced by Trump.
“This is not a President Trump decision, this is a House decision,” Johnson said at the time of Turner’s removal. “This is no slight whatsoever to our outgoing chairman. He did a great job.”
Meanwhile, not all parts of Trump’s “big beautiful bill” are being embraced by Republicans, including his $5 million “gold card” visas, which some Republican members on the House Judiciary Committee failed to push in its final mark-up successfully. Trump’s proposal would allow wealthy immigrants to acquire a visa for a $5 million investment, which would enable them a pathway to citizenship. It was met with criticism by Judiciary Committee Republicans, with one lawmaker telling the Washington Examiner that there was “massive concern about basically putting up access to the United States for sale, built on basically a model similar to the failed EB-5 program.”
Republican leadership of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is still seeking to win over GOP members’ approval for a markup that would overhaul Medicaid, leading to massive cuts to the program.
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Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN), a member of the House Freedom Caucus and Energy and Commerce Committee, said Republicans are skeptical of Rep. Brett Guthrie’s (R-KY), Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, markups, which would put federal spending caps in Medicaid expansion states.
“Per capita caps or FMAP — All of that is still up in the air. We just still have to see what will please everybody,” Harshbarger said. “There’s still skepticism, not just among the Freedom Caucus, but the moderates too.”