From continuous golf trips, to stays at the “Winter White House”, to extra spending – Trump’s hypocritical spending is out of control

The ever-benevolent president of the United States, Donald J Trump, only wants the best for his people and never entangles himself in financial hypocrisy, does he? Well, maybe he does…

• A visit to the “Winter White House” costs up to $3 million each time.
• Trump has reportedly visited two golf courses, near his Mar-a-Lago estate, 10 times since taking office eight weeks ago.
• At least $200,000 per day spent to protect Trump Tower.
• This is while relatively inexpensive programs like Meals on Wheels, designed to feed senior citizens in need, are cut.

Donald Trump’s 2018 budget proposal aims to give a big haircut to a large number of social and research programs, in favour of increasing spending on defence and homeland security. It was met with wide-ranging criticism, especially when examining the contradictions.

Trump put a heavy emphasis on cutting waste by eliminating programs that in many cases only cost the government a few million dollars a year, contextually miniscule in the scale of the US government, but enough to make a difference to ordinary American lives.

The “Winter White House”

Trump’s trips to Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach estate in Florida now dubbed the “Winter White House” reportedly costs around $2-3 million each time. The original $3 million-plus estimate was based on an October 2016 Government Accountability Office report on a trip President Barack Obama took in 2013.

That 2013 trip, which included a stop in Palm Beach, cost $3.6 million, $3.2 million of which was the cost of aircrafts. This not only includes Air Force One, but the five other support planes and four support helicopters that the president has in his entourage. Furthermore there is the cost of Secret Service at around $180,000.

Trump has made this trip five times so far this year.

One trip could have almost funded the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness – budgeted at $4 million in 2016 – for nearly four years if he’d just stayed in the White House.

Trump Tower

Protecting the first lady Melania Trump and the Trump’s son Barron at Trump Tower was estimated to be costing $200,000 per day in New York. This cost would essentially be eliminated if they joined Donald at the White House.

This figure comprises of the Secret Service staffing costs, the rent paid to Trump Tower for the Secret Service and Military for their space (estimated at $4,100 per day / $1.5 million per year).

NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said that security for Trump Tower during the transition period cost New Yorkers an estimated $24 million.

However, Trump wants to slash NYPD anti-terror funding while the city pays to protect Trump Tower. Bomb robots, bomb suits, explosive-sniffing dogs, tactical shooter training, and surveillance cameras are just some of the critical counterterrorism tools that New York City, the No. 1 terror target in the U.S., could lose in the Trump administration’s proposed federal budget cuts.

The proposed budget would slash $110 million from the city’s counterterrorism program

Golfing

Donald Trump spent years complaining about Obama’s golfing habits, but now that he is President of course these concerns over the Commander-in-Chief golfing too much have disappeared.

Since taking office eight weeks ago, Trump has reportedly visited two golf courses near his Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach, Florida, estate 10 times. But of course, Trump and his press secretary Sean Spicer are claiming that just because Trump is at the golf course, it doesn’t mean he is playing.

After spending seven hours at his golf club this past weekend, Trump told reporters that he played “very little” golf. This tweet appears to show otherwise with Trump in a golfing glove and polo shirt.

Spicer defended Trump’s secretive playing by saying he’s “entitled to a bit of privacy.”

Obama did golf a lot – 333 times during his eight years in the White House, to be exact. That’s once every 8.8 days. Trump is already beating Obama, according to the Palm Beach Post: The president has golfed once every 6.8 days – and that’s not including whatever golf the Trump has played this past weekend.

During his campaign, however, Trump promised voters that he wouldn’t spend any time on the links. “I’m going to be working for you,” he said at a 2016 Virginia event. “I’m not going to have time to go play golf.”

Other costs, such as his adult sons’ recent trip to the United Arab Emirates to open the new Trump-branded golf resort and the associated Secret Service tab should also be kept in mind.