Sen. Brown criticizes Trump plan to give senior officials pay raises during shutdown

Sen. Sherrod Brown, (D-Ohio), is criticizing President Trump’s plan to give pay raises of $10,000 a year to the administration’s top political appointees in the midst of the federal government shutdown that’s affecting people in places such as Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

RELATED: White House exploring ways to stop raises during shutdown

“President Trump is padding the pockets of his millionaire political officials while taking money out of the pockets of hard-working people at places like Wright-Patt,” Brown said in a prepared statement released Friday evening.

“This is a betrayal of American workers,” he said in the statement.

The announcement about the pay increases, in a story first reported tonight by the Washington Post, comes on the 13th day of the shutdown, which has forced many federal workers to be furloughed and others to work without pay.

Over the holidays, Trump also issued an executive order that allowed him to unilaterally implement a pay freeze for civilian federal employees in 2019 that would deny tens of thousands of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base employees the modest 1.9 percent pay raise they have earned.

RELATED: Trump orders federal worker pay freeze for 2019

RELATED: See Jamie Dupree's Washington Insider for more on shutdown

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