Bill Clinton: “Federal Employees August 31, 1994 Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:) Action on the FY 1995 Treasury, Postal…”

“Federal Employees August 31, 1994 Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:) Action on the FY 1995 Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government Appropriations Bill, will not be completed before the August 31st deadline for an alternative pay plan. Therefore, as a protective measure, in order to ensure that a substantially larger pay increase does not go into effect automatically by operation of law, it is necessary for me to transmit an alternative pay plan. Under section 5303(a) of title 5, United States Code, the rates of basic pay of the statutory pay systems would be increased by 2.6 percent effective in January 1995. Section 5303(b) of title 5, however, provides me the authority to implement an alternative pay adjustment plan if I consider the pay adjustment that would otherwise be required by law to be inappropriate because of ``national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare.'' As you know, alternative pay plan authority has been used many times over the past 15 years. ``Serious economic conditions'' are defined in the statute to include consideration of economic measures such as the Index of Leading Economic Indicators, the Gross National Product, the unemployment rate, the budget deficit, the Consumer Price Index, the Producer Price Index, the Employment Cost Index, and the Implicit Price Deflator for Personal Consumption Expenditures.…”