Condor’s Advice? Absent Very Unusual Conditions, Don’t Accept Trump Buyout Offer.

Obviously, I am not giving individual legal or tax advice here, but my advice boils down to "Why would you trust the man at right?" That's the gist of it.

Sure, at least one federal judge has said that Trump may make this voluntary offer to federal employees. But based on over 40 years of lived experience (suggesting exactly the opposite), should you accept it, you are simply trusting that Donald Trump is a man of his word. After all, he cons his own least sophisticated supporters (see at right).

Now, if you are independently wealthy, and work the federal job because it is interesting and helps humanity -- and you feel like taking the summer vacationing -- or are fully vested in the pension and very near the age you were going to retire at in any event, then maybe you don't have a whole lot to lose from taking a flier on his offer and taking the summer off.

But if you actually need the money to meet your bills week to week, or are thinking you're going to need to find another job after the severance period is over, there is every reason to believe that at some point over the course of the summer Trump and Musk will stiff you, on this offer. Either a court will order them to halt, or they simply will say that the GOP Congress won't allow them to pay you the money.

You will be left with a lawsuit against the federal government that may take years to resolve. You are very likely to win that lawsuit, but it will take years to resolve.

Finally, consider that if you do not sign up for the severance offer, you may still very well have a good employment law claim against the federal government for the way in which this nonsense was rolled out. . . and/or administered, even if Trump actually ends up paying all the money the severance has promised.

And so, it is my opinion that unless you are in the one-one-hundredth of one percent of the federal workforce that meets the above limiting factors, I can't imagine why you would willingly walk away from a good job with very stable benefits -- one from which he mostly cannot fire you, without very specific well documented cause.

If anyone reading this post disagrees with me or has other observations or even questions, feel free to put them in the comments (even anonymously) and and I will try to answer them. I genuinely intend this to be helpful to people who may not know the full extent of their rights -- as a federal employee.

Onward.

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