The verdict: Work or free time?

Mere hours from this writing on Friday afternoon, many feds either will be heaving a sigh of relief or trying to figure out what to do with their free time.

Of course, even if Congress misses its April 8 midnight deadline to pass a budget bill, it does have luxury of quibbling for two more days over the weekend before reality comes barreling down on Monday morning.

Earlier on, President Obama said he would not accept another continuing resolution, and for good reason: This ongoing fiscal 2011 budget fight is distracting from other matters before Congress.

Such as the fiscal 2012 budget, which debuted just days ago.

If Congress somehow does pass a bill by the deadline — or over the weekend — the following few days will be spent going over the final product to see who made out and who got taken to the cleaners.

We read a report today from the Washington Post that said budget negotiators were bouncing around possible ways to trim pay for some feds, maybe by denying certain bonuses and step increases.

Of course, it’s all still anyone’s guess. But from this point in time just hours before the expiration of the last CR, we don’t see how feds can come out of this budget battle unscathed.