Even if it does cost 3 times as much, compared to the scale of the Federal government and the responsibilities of the Executive, it just doesn’t matter. A single major decision like a trade deal or a better price on a major purchase like the F-35, if the outcome resulted in genuine savings to the taxpayers, would pay for the security costs for the president’s entire term.
It’s a drop in the bucket. Trump’s opponents would find it more relevant to examine decisions he has made, as poor decisions is what costs the taxpayers. To keep this on a factual basis : if it were possible to avoid the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, that would have saved the taxpayers several trillion dollars. Cost is still being accounted for, since there are many veterans with lifelong injuries as a result of those wars, and the additional national debt incurred may not be repaid for a very long time.
So if George W Bush had spent 3 times as much time traveling to an office building in Austin or something, but had found a way to avoid those wars, it would have negated any incremental cost incurred by many orders of magnitude.
The numbers came from taking a GAO report (pdf) on Obama’s travel expense for a trip to Palm Beach in 2013 and applying them to Trump.
Ironically, we only have this report because Republicans were outraged that Obama dare spend taxpayer money on travel. Republican Senator John Barrasso requested the report, saying "At a time when the government was tightening its belt to prepare for sequestration, President Obama had such little regard for the taxpayer that he spent millions of dollars to play golf with Tiger Woods. This arrogance is par for the course for the Obama administration.”
Still, arguing on the other side, to be fair: it might be a good idea for some very important people to draw El Trumpo to one side, and appeal to his better self as a man of sense.
“Mr. president, Trumpy old man, y’know we all have to do some belt-tightening: no-one begrudges you your well-deserved breaks — and we would like it if you relaxed yourself away from office more, say a handsome 21 days in every month — but is it really necessary to maintain you and your family at Trump properties when you have a perfectly good home here at the White House ? We can fund you there, and fund you on holiday, and again it would be splendid if you took many more of those to keep in good shape, but we suggest very strongly as a gentleman you might like to rent out the golden towers for the duration. Your unique dignity and sense of fair play demands this of you. There are many poor souls who’d be only too glad of the White House; there was an interested tenant inspecting the place for months before you moved in, and she was already packed and everything. Come now, be a good fellow and enjoy yourself in the dear old place without darting about like a demented bee. We think you’ll do the right thing: it’s what we know and love about you.”
Has the man ever, well, done something that would arguably seem dignified or someone who would engage in fair play? Has he ever left money on the table in the deal or done something that lost him money in order to make his tenants happy? I’m genuinely asking here : everything the media tends to dredge up seems to indicate the opposite - hundreds of examples of him shorting people who did work for him, and of course various ripoffs such as Trump University. Does he ever pay *bonuses *he didn’t agree to ahead of time when people do top tier work for him?
When he was on the spot and asked if he’d ever sacrificed anything, he didn’t really have any examples that fit the above. All he talked about was working hard - which I guess in his mind is a “sacrifice” of his time he could spend on leisure - in order to enrich himself and incidentally to keep employed the people needed for his business to remain functional*. This is generally not what most people refer to as “sacrifice”…
*Did he ever keep unnecessary positions open so people could remain employed or offer more generous perks than similar positions at his competitors?
Presidents create substantial economic disruption – mostly negative – wherever they go, and Trump’s frequent visits to Mar-a-Logo seem to do so more than most.
Secret Service imposes a no-fly zone of 10 mile radius wherever the Prez goes. There is an airport 8 miles from Mar-a-Logo. Whenever Trump goes there, the airport is very nearly on lock-down. Much of their business is on weekends – commercial sight-seeing flights, flying schools and such. I saw somewhere that aircraft repair shops there can’t even fire up the engines on the ground when Trump is in town. $30,000 lost business at the airport in one 4-day weekend, and $200,000 in lost fuel sales, 250 private flights grounded daily.
Street closures are also disruptive to businesses. One restaurant reports the 75 reservations didn’t show up one night. People have to drive long detours to get around the closed roads. Local residents have to carry ID to get back home when they walk their dogs.
All the publicity, however, seems good for certain businesses.
I’m surprised nobody has pointed out that it doesn’t require vacationing in Florida every weekend at considerable expense to make good decisions that save taxpayer money. And if it does, well then, Trump may not be suited to the job.
Doesn’t that assume that the act of travelling away from the White House on vacation would have caused W to change his decision-making with regard to the Afghanistan/Iraq wars? Why do you feel there is a correlation?
Furthermore, if Trump spends 3x more taxpayer money on travel away from the office on non-diplomatic trips, should we consider that good decision-making? Or is it possible that spending gobs of taxpayer money so he can personally golf every weekend is not going to “make America great again”? Should we assume that the trips are necessary because his decision-making improves at Mar-a-Lago? I guess if you want to argue that the vast resources POTUS has at his disposal in the White House is useless. He may agree with you in the sense that reports from inside suggest he’s seeking advice from outside his administration with disturbing regularity.
Why can’t we have both: a POTUS who works from the White House, plays less golf in Florida, and keeps us out of expensive wars? Is that too much to ask or should just accept that The Government should simply divert taxpayer money from the DoD to executive branch so that President Tweety McTweeterson can decide how to spell hereby on his golden throne at Mar-a-Lago?
Congress has the exclusive power of the purse. They could remove all funding from the military and every executive branch agency, completely neutering the President and leaving him powerless… Until the next election, when voters would remove all those congressmen who did that. Which is why it hasn’t happened yet, and is unlikely to ever happen. But there is nothing in our Constitution saying it can’t, if for whatever reason our representatives agree that it should.
Not many get the US taxpayer to fly them at enormous expense to their own resort, where all costs are then picked up, and then fly them back to the White House so they can do a day or two of work before flying to their NYC penthouse building, where all costs are picked up, lather rinse repeat on about a ten day cycle. So there is that.
Apparently, simply giving everyone the right to vote on a decision, whether they know anything about the subject matter or are judging based on rationality or emotion - isn’t going to result in great decisions! Who knew?!
As they say, democracy is the lesser of two evils. It’s a terrible method to make a decision that can result in voters choosing people who are actively against the interests of the people casting the vote, and/or con men and shysters. And it’s explicitly structured such that only the top 2 candidates, nominated by the powerful and wealthy, have any non-negligible chance of winning at all.
So, you’re right. But as long as people can just listen to incorrect rants on TV or the radio and stagger into the voting booth and mash a D or R, ignorant of anything else, their votes counting just as much as anyone else, we’re not going to see amazing results. They are just less bad than the alternative.
With that said, I was trying to say that it doesn’t really matter one way or another if Trump wastes a little bit of our money going golfing. Drop in the bucket. Much bigger issues at stake here.
Any reason you mention the DoD specifically? I mean, just saying, let’s say Trump funnels 25% of the budget of the DoD to his own pockets. That’s a major crime and theft on a very large scale - but - how would it matter at a national defense level? What country is going to say “The U.S. military is at half strength, now’s our chance!”.
Now, all the soldiers and their families would be negatively affected, and I think any such drawdown should be a reduction of deficit spending and a gradual shrinking of the military, because it needs to be designed to meet actual defense needs.
Those authorities would very likely lose any Federal funding/assistance they may get, similar to the way the Fed coerced the states to enact the 55mph national speed limit, the legal drinking age of 21, and probably a few other things BITD.
As an example, in today’s climate, nearly every law enforcement agency gets *some *kind of funding or assistance from the Department of Homeland Security, especially larger cities’ PDs and state police. Almost every LE agency that operates aviation assets is dependent on continued funding through DHS to keep operating those assets.