Badass.
Perhaps inspired by SecDef Hagel's decision to do the same, this just came in from Political Wire:
President Obama "plans to return 5 percent of his salary to the Treasury in solidarity with federal workers who are going to be furloughed as part of the budget cutting process known as sequester," the New York Times reports.
"The voluntary move would be retroactive to March 1 and apply through the rest of the calendar year... The White House came up with the 5 percent figure to approximate the level of automatic spending cuts to non-defense federal agencies that took effect that day."
http://politicalwire.com/...
Now let's see how many GOP politicians do the same. I'm going to guess zero.
Big h/t to ferallike for retweeting the news. :)
Update 1:
From The New York Times:
“The president has decided that to share in the sacrifice being made by public servants across the federal government that are affected by the sequester, he will contribute a portion of his salary back to the Treasury,” the official said.
Word of the president’s decision came just a day after Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter disclosed that they will return a share of their salaries commensurate with the pay lost by the department’s civilian employees who are expected to be furloughed for 14 days before the end of the fiscal year.
The president makes $400,000 a year, so 5 percent of that salary over 10 months would amount to $16,667. The president’s salary is set by law and cannot be changed during his term, but he will write a check starting this month, the official said.
http://www.nytimes.com/...