Over at The BLT, Tony Mauro has an interesting post on the proposed Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for federal judges that would let judicial salaries adjust for inflation. The COLA increase was originally inserted into the auto bailout bill, but it was pulled because it became controversial:
[E]ven before the Senate killed the bailout, the judges’ COLA got into unexpected trouble. Some press reports on the House action portrayed it as a judicial “pay raise” that had been tucked into the House bill — rather than an adjustment that barely keeps them even with inflation. The news reports, apparently, scared off the Senate.