Legislators' Salaries Exempt From Sequester Cuts

Thanks to the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget Act

One small group is curiously immune from the sequester and the related furloughs that are about to become a fact of life in Washington: Congress.

Hundreds of thousands of federal employees will take a pay cut because of this year's $85 billion in automatic spending cuts, including about 750,000 at the Pentagon alone. Air traffic control towers are being closed, unemployment benefits are being reduced, and the White House has even cancelled tours.