“We have institutionally been in a pretty good position to weather all this,” Chambliss said. “We don’t have the exposure of say, the large academic medical centers that are reliant on indirect cost and more reliant on federal dollars than Baylor … Their funding for research can be as much as 80% out of a federal portfolio; ours is only 50%.”

A major legal issue that federal unions and lawyers are addressing is the fact that the lump sum that’s being promised may not be given to the employees who accept, since only Congress has the authority to approve the budget and payments, not the executive branch.

“Republicans currently have a razor-thin majority in the House. That’s evidenced by difficulty wrangling routine votes, such as passing a budget, and so it’s very possible that the majority could flip after the 2024 election,” Flavin said.

Congress passed a stopgap spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, on Sunday, narrowly avoiding a government shutdown. The House and Senate signed the bill an hour before the deadline.

It really is only a matter of time before marijuana is legalized in America anyway. According to a recent poll done by POLITICO and Morning Consult, almost two-thirds of voters supported President Biden’s pardoning of nonviolent marijuana offenders.