As our Deputy Managing Editor Susie Moore and my colleague streiff reported, Thursday, February 6, at day's end is the deadline for accepting the Trump buyout for federal employees. According to Axios, so far 20,000 federal employees have accepted the terms of the offer.

.@realDonaldTrump is offering a buyout for ALL 2M federal employees to resign. Severance package including pay and benefits through Sept 30th. 5-10% are expected to quit. If so, $100B+ will be saved.@DOGE will NOT replace these jobs. pic.twitter.com/zypRr5HOHC

— The DOGE Report (@the_dogereport) January 31, 2025

Thousands of federal workers have accepted the Trump administration’s buyout offer — taking eight months’ pay and benefits in exchange for walking away from the government workforce, The Post has learned.

Employees have until Thursday to decide whether to accept the offer, which the White House hopes will reduce the federal payroll by between 5% and 10%.

Axios first reported Tuesday that close to 20,000 federal workers had accepted the offer, an amount representing less than 1% of government personnel.

This is a good start, and definitely expect more. Many employees will want to keep it on the down-low, either because they don't want to be embarrassed or they think they still have the power to "resist." A White House official confirmed to the New York Post that many are simply waiting until the last minute.

“I can tell you the 20K number isn’t current, the number of deferred resignations is rapidly growing, and we’re expecting the largest spike 24 to 48 hours before the deadline,” a White House official told The Post.

The buyout offer is believed to apply to at least 2.3 million federal employees.

If the administration reaches its goal of 5% to 10% of the federal workforce accepting the offer, it believes that could save taxpayers close to $100 billion.

Americans like to hear this, and many are applauding the work that DOGE and Elon Musk are spearheading. One hundred billion matters on a number of levels. Nobody cares particularly about the price of avocados or maple syrup; they want to know their tax dollars are not being wasted on employees who do not wish to work or programs that do not put America first or further the American interest. That ship has sailed, and Democrats and leftists are still hanging around the dock. 

There will be a few employees who return to work, thinking they can infiltrate and do their deep state deeds; but I suspect after this first culling of the herd, that the landscape and access for those who stay would be drastically altered. Different roles, and an even higher potential that they may return to work for a different agency of the government, or not at all.

Zero sympathy for federal employees who turn down Trump's generous deferred resignation offer and then get fired.

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) February 1, 2025

And if Trump makes good on his promise to dismantle the Department of Education, then that's another 4,400 or so jobs that will no longer need to be filled. If nothing else, government workers now understand that this Trump administration means business and expects any remaining employees to be about that business, and not some counter-campaign of sabotage.