Buyouts: What, if anything is likely to happen?

Published: Oct. 4, 2017, 6:01 p.m.

Are you one of hundreds of thousands of federal workers who could retire tomorrow if you wanted to?

What if Uncle Sam made you a once-in-a-lifetime cash offer you couldnt refuse. And what if that payment, now $25,000, was bumped up by $15,000?

Does the possibility of a $40,000 buyout however remote tempt you to hang on to see what happens?

The good news is that the Senate may (as in MAY, MAYBE, MIGHT) consider and pass legislation that would raise the maximum for all government buyouts to $40,000. Currently, only Defense can offer feds that much money to take regular or early retirement. Other agencies are limited to $25,000 which, after all those deductions, doesn't have the buying power it did in the 1990s.