Business class just got slightly more complicated.
Feb 21 // Feb 5 2017
"We're gonna need a bigger budget."
And just a few weeks ago, we were all kinds of worked up about something else….
We’re not entirely sure about this because it’s difficult to find the archived news stories that could help. But we wonder a few things:
You could make a case that the last President we elected who had adult children was George H.W. Bush in 1988: He and Barbara’s children were George, Jeb, Dorothy, Neil and Marvin. At the time, they were (respectively): oil company executive / managing partner of The Texas Rangers, Florida’s Secretary of Commerce turned campaign worker, fundraiser and philanthropist, oil/banking ne’er do well, and insurance executive. Thirty years ago may as well be a century ago as far as protection and costs of protection. Ronald Reagan’s children were also adults when their father took the White House, almost forty years ago.
The difference between the Bush family, the Reagan family and the Trump family appears to be that none of the Bush or Reagan offspring were engaged in businesses that regularly found them traveling the globe. Our more recent presidents, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, had children that were even further removed from the workforce. We’re not certain of the numbers here but let’s just say that Secret Service detail assigned to Sidwell Friends School during the Obama and Clinton administrations, and even the ones assigned to protecting the Bush’s daughters while attending Yale and University of Texas, Austin were a far cry from the agents flying to Uruguay or those assigned full time to the President’s New York City home on Fifth Avenue and still others assigned to West Palm Beach. Suffice it to say that providing security for sleepovers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for Malia during the early Obama years were an entirely different expense and activity than accommodating the security needs for Eric during a business meeting in Dubai.
Depending on whose numbers you believe, it costs anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 a day to protect the Trump home on Fifth Avenue. It costs Palm Beach police $60,000 a day in additional costs to protect the President when he’s in town. During a Trump International business trip, secret service hotel bills alone in Dubai topped $16,000. The Eric Trump business trip to Uruguay on behalf of Trump International cost an estimated $100,000.
It’s the last couple we want to focus on here at Two Weeks Ago News. The ones that seems to have outraged us all the most. Taxpayers are paying for President Trump’s business ventures! He and his company are bilking the taxpayers and getting expenses paid with our money!
How can we explain this? It looks that way and it probably even feels that way but it’s not that way. According to the Secret Service website, they routinely and regularly protect the President, the Vice-President and their immediate families. That’s exactly what’s happening here – no more, no less. Truth is, the reasons these expenses are incurred are irrelevant. We’re not paying the cost of the Eric Trump’s business travel. We’re paying the costs of security officers for Eric Trump because his father is the President now. Whether he crosses the street or crosses the globe is irrelevant.
Think of it this way. Taxpayers paid to make sure Malia and Sasha arrived at school safely! Our money made sure that Barbara and Jenna got to all those frat parties safely! Yup. It did. And we didn’t do it because we felt like paying for private security forces or college mayhem. We did it because they were members of the President’s immediate family, going about their everyday lives. Same thing here. Except now the everyday lives involve business meetings around the world.
We know this isn’t exactly startling news, or it shouldn’t be. But everyone seems so worked up with thought it was worth pointing out.
And yes, it’s ridiculously expensive. Prohibitively expensive. Outrage-worthy, even. But unless and until new rules go into effect (rules like the first family must live together in the White House; not all over the country), we’re stuck with it.
So what do we do, other than rant and rave? Nothing. But if history means anything, we’ll be onto the next soon enough.
"We're gonna need a bigger budget."
And just a few weeks ago, we were all kinds of worked up about something else….
We’re not entirely sure about this because it’s difficult to find the archived news stories that could help. But we wonder a few things:
- When is the last time the President had adult children that were protected by the Secret Service?
- What did those adult children do for a living and how much was involved in protecting them?
- Didn’t anybody do the math on this whole security detail before Donald Trump and his immediate family of 18 people - wife Melania, young son Barron, four adult children (three of them married) and eight grandchildren - became the nation’s First Family?
You could make a case that the last President we elected who had adult children was George H.W. Bush in 1988: He and Barbara’s children were George, Jeb, Dorothy, Neil and Marvin. At the time, they were (respectively): oil company executive / managing partner of The Texas Rangers, Florida’s Secretary of Commerce turned campaign worker, fundraiser and philanthropist, oil/banking ne’er do well, and insurance executive. Thirty years ago may as well be a century ago as far as protection and costs of protection. Ronald Reagan’s children were also adults when their father took the White House, almost forty years ago.
The difference between the Bush family, the Reagan family and the Trump family appears to be that none of the Bush or Reagan offspring were engaged in businesses that regularly found them traveling the globe. Our more recent presidents, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, had children that were even further removed from the workforce. We’re not certain of the numbers here but let’s just say that Secret Service detail assigned to Sidwell Friends School during the Obama and Clinton administrations, and even the ones assigned to protecting the Bush’s daughters while attending Yale and University of Texas, Austin were a far cry from the agents flying to Uruguay or those assigned full time to the President’s New York City home on Fifth Avenue and still others assigned to West Palm Beach. Suffice it to say that providing security for sleepovers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for Malia during the early Obama years were an entirely different expense and activity than accommodating the security needs for Eric during a business meeting in Dubai.
Depending on whose numbers you believe, it costs anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 a day to protect the Trump home on Fifth Avenue. It costs Palm Beach police $60,000 a day in additional costs to protect the President when he’s in town. During a Trump International business trip, secret service hotel bills alone in Dubai topped $16,000. The Eric Trump business trip to Uruguay on behalf of Trump International cost an estimated $100,000.
It’s the last couple we want to focus on here at Two Weeks Ago News. The ones that seems to have outraged us all the most. Taxpayers are paying for President Trump’s business ventures! He and his company are bilking the taxpayers and getting expenses paid with our money!
How can we explain this? It looks that way and it probably even feels that way but it’s not that way. According to the Secret Service website, they routinely and regularly protect the President, the Vice-President and their immediate families. That’s exactly what’s happening here – no more, no less. Truth is, the reasons these expenses are incurred are irrelevant. We’re not paying the cost of the Eric Trump’s business travel. We’re paying the costs of security officers for Eric Trump because his father is the President now. Whether he crosses the street or crosses the globe is irrelevant.
Think of it this way. Taxpayers paid to make sure Malia and Sasha arrived at school safely! Our money made sure that Barbara and Jenna got to all those frat parties safely! Yup. It did. And we didn’t do it because we felt like paying for private security forces or college mayhem. We did it because they were members of the President’s immediate family, going about their everyday lives. Same thing here. Except now the everyday lives involve business meetings around the world.
We know this isn’t exactly startling news, or it shouldn’t be. But everyone seems so worked up with thought it was worth pointing out.
And yes, it’s ridiculously expensive. Prohibitively expensive. Outrage-worthy, even. But unless and until new rules go into effect (rules like the first family must live together in the White House; not all over the country), we’re stuck with it.
So what do we do, other than rant and rave? Nothing. But if history means anything, we’ll be onto the next soon enough.