Trump Travel Expense Likely Hurting Other Secret Service Programs
Leave a commentMarch 22, 2017 by Chris Kite
The Secret Service has requested, and been denied, $60M in additional Presidential and First Family protection travel related expenses. Of that money, $26.8M is for protecting the First Lady and their son in New York. The other $33M is for protecting the President, Vice President, and other visiting heads of state. This is most likely for all those trips to Florida.
I don’t have a problem with Presidents traveling or taking vacation. Getting out and seeing the country, it’s constituents, and the problems that we have is a big part of the job. It is a demanding and stressful job and they should be allowed some level of freedom. But this President campaigned on not traveling and not playing golf, so like so many things he promised, he was conning his voters. Then there is the extreme budget he has submitted, cutting funding for the arts, the environment, public education, and social safety nets.
What is even worse is that by denying the funding, it means the money will have to come from other secret service programs such as investigating counterfeit-money operations, cybercrimes, counterfeit-money operations, as well as cases that involve missing and exploited minors.