As Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has been negotiating with Democrats to move the Secret Service budget back to the Treasury Department instead of Homeland Security, he has agreed to disclose the travel costs of Trump and security — but wants to wait until December 2020.
During the campaign in 2016, Trump said he would rarely leave the White House, and pointed to the waste of taxpayer money that Obama spent on golf and vacation travel. Since taking office, however, Trump has made more than 50 visits to his properties outside Washington, primarily Florida and New Jersey.
The government spent $96 million on travel in the eight years of Obama’s tenure. But according to the Government Accountability Office, the congressional watchdog on federal spending, Trump’s costs were estimated at $13.6 in just one month in 2017. This included travel costs for Secret Service and DOD personnel, as well as boats and planes.
Trump spawn have also used the taxpayer dime to travel internationally to several countries for business and vacations. One trip to a building project in Uruguay by Eric Trump cost taxpayers $97,000.
The exact cost of Trump and family travel has been unknown.
The available records about Trump’s travel provide only snapshots of the costs to the public: The GAO, for instance, found that his first four trips to Mar-a-Lago in 2017 cost the Secret Service about $1.3 million each. (Other agencies also spent money on those trips, bringing the federal government’s total spending to $3.4 million per visit to Mar-a-Lago.)
In March 2017, the Secret Service asked for an additional $60 million to adjust to Trump’s travel plans. The Secret Service has disclosed that they have spent $588,000 on third party golf carts since 2017.
Source: Washington Post
