Good news on your 2009 pay raise.  The House Armed Services Committee has passed their FY 2009 Defense Authorization bill.  This bill includes a 3.9% pay increase for uniformed military personnel.  That’s good news for most every Federal employee, though, because Congress has been pretty diligent in synching the military and civilian raises.  Another happy nugget for you and your colleagues: the Senate’s bill, while differing from the House version in many ways, includes the same raise that’s in the House bill.

The White House is a different story.  President Bush’s budget suggests a military raise of 3.4%, and a civilian raise of 2.9%.  When the White House proposed those numbers back in January, members of Congress—both Democrat and Republican—and labor unions like NTEU, howled about the lack of “pay parity” and said they’d work for the same raise for both civilian and military.  They’ve also committed to working for the 3.9% number for both.

So you’ll hear news stories over the next few days about the increase coming to military families.  Don’t believe the hype.  Will you get a raise?  Sure.  But there are many, many steps to go before we know what it is.

It will take time for the Senate and House to put their bills through the conference process.  Then they’ll go to the President — where the bill may just get vetoed, in which case we’re right back where we started.

So this is a nice step toward your 2009 pay raise—but it’s a little teeny baby step.