Can we . . . talk?
Please.
The Wife tells me we are spending too much money. She says we need to dial it down. Way down.
During President Obama’s eight years in office, his travel expenses totaled $97 million. (Maybe not so bad because “travel” includes related security. Gee. Golly gee. A bargain after all, you say?)
Wait a minute. Did you think The Wife and I were talking about our personal expenditures?
No way! We’re talking about our taxpayer expenditures.
(Well, there is an overlap between the two. Don’t know about you, but one of The Wife’s and my greatest personal expense categories are the taxes we pay each year. True story.)
So, back to the opening item, travel expenses.
During President Obama’s eight years in office, we taxpayers paid (his and his family’s) travel expenses in the amount of $97 million.
In contrast, according to The Washington Post, the cost to we the taxpayers in providing travel for President Trump and his family in just the first month of his presidency exceeded $11 million! In one month. This includes three weekend trips to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and trips abroad taken by his sons Eric and Donald Jr. to promote family business. In addition, it is costing us about $500,000 per day to provide security to wife Melania and son Barron Trump while they live in Trump Tower in New York. (Note: that’s wife Melania; there’s only one The Wife. Remember, you heard that here first.) And, I haven’t yet heard the figures we taxpayers are expending to secure daughter Ivanka and her husband and children, not to mention the other Trump children.
So, at this pace, Trump will surpass Obama’s eight-year total in just one year. Not to worry, though, because Trump has graciously waived his $400,000 annual salary as Precedent. Er, President.
So, in the spirit of can we talk, how do you feel about all this? Do you feel okay seeing this magnitude of taxpayer money being spent on Precedential family travel and security?
I mean, after all, Trump’s grown sons have a business to run. And things are tight, especially given that their father is unemployed. At least in terms of bringing in a salary. Shouldn’t we at least pay for their travel and security as they jet around the world on personal family business?
And never mind that we offer Melania and Barron nice digs, with a full staff, and all of the trimmings, in D.C. Shouldn’t we also pick up the tab for securing their unnecessary second home in New York, even though that won’t reduce what we are spending to make their D.C. home available to them? Yes, it’s of course nice that The Donald and Melania don’t want to uproot Barron in the middle of his school year. But should that be on us? How about we pay The Donald his Precedential salary, and then he pick up his family’s security costs associated with his New York and Mar-a-Lago homes?
On the other hand, we don’t seem to have an excess of qualified candidates like The Donald willing to sacrifice personal interests to serve as our Precedent. Maybe The Wife shouldn’t be too hasty after all in wanting to cut back on “our” travel costs.
So, what do you think? Should we be cutting back?
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