President Barack Obama will pay back 5 percent of his annual government salary to the United States Treasury.
And he is doing this to draw attention to the financial sacrifice of more than 1 million federal employees who will be furloughed by automatic spending cuts starting in less than three weeks, the White House said Wednesday.
“The salary for the president, as with members of Congress, is set by law and cannot be changed,” an aide said to Yahoo News on condition of anonymity.
“However, 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 gesture comes as the president has struggled for weeks to convince Americans that the $85 billion sequester that kicked in across the government a month ago is having dire consequences for government services.
Obama’s salary is set at $400,000 a year. A five percent cut would remove a $20,000 wedge from that total.
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