Taxpayers Are Subsidizing Mar-a-Lago's New Year's Eve Party Despite Trump's Shutdown

[babylonsister]

Taxpayers Are Subsidizing Mar-a-Lago’s New Year’s Eve Party Despite Trump’s Shutdown
The president doesn’t seem to care about the 800,000 workers who won’t be receiving paychecks during the government shutdown
Ryan Bort
December 28, 2018 11:12AM EST



Though Trump’s decision to shut down the government may keep him in Washington for the holidays, it won’t keep taxpayers from footing a heavy portion of the bill for Mar-a-Lago’s New Year’s Eve party. As was noted by Quartz this week, government spending data shows that the Secret Service paid Grimes Events & Party Tents Inc. of Delray Beach, Florida, $54,020 on December 19th for “TENT RENTAL FOR MAL.” An employee of the company confirmed to Quartz that it is providing tents for the annual for-profit bash at Trump’s “Winter White House” in Palm Beach.

Americans chipping in to help Trump and the Palm Beach elite turn over their calendars isn’t unique to this year. The Secret Service spent just over $26,000 on an array of accessories for Mar-a-Lago’s New Year’s Eve party in 2017, which was attended by both Trump and Melania. Though it’s never not going to be a conflict of interest when the president has taxpayers subsidize a for-profit party at his private club, $54,000 for tents feels especially egregious given that the government is currently running under a partial shutdown that has deprived approximately 800,000 federal workers of their paychecks.

Link to tweet

Tickets to Mar-a-Lago’s New Year’s Eve party are $1,000, up from $750 a year ago, which was up from $575 the year before that. The cost of joining the club has also skyrocketed since Trump became a political figure. Shortly after he took office, former Obama ethics chief Norm Eisen described the price hike to the Washington Post as “naked profiteering that is more like something out of the era of Louis XVI.” Anyone with an extra grand lying around can essentially buy access to the president.

Given the government shutdown, it’s unclear whether Trump will make it to Florida for New Year’s Eve. After returning from a surprise visit to Iraq, Melania traveled to Palm Beach on Thursday night. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, both government employees, have been vacationing at Mar-a-Lago since before Christmas. On Tuesday, the couple was photographed taking a stroll in flip-flops.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is telling the 800,000 federal employees currently out of a paycheck to turn to creditors for help paying their bills. The office even tweeted out sample letters employees can use to apply for relief.

more...

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-mar-a-lago-new-year-eve-party-shutdown-773385/amp/

[Achilleaze]

1. republicans are squandering our hard-earned tax dollars

to pamper republican billionaires with golden, glorious, caviar-enriched luxuries. That sucks.

republicans need to stop squandering our tax money. Now.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

26. +1

Democrats need to start saying as much on the floor of the House. Everyday. At least one Representative calling it out.

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. Deplorables LOVE taking money out of their pocket and handing it to the rump kushner syndicate.

It makes them feel like they are part of the racism and hatred that fuels the syndicate.

[Ilsa]

3. God forgive for praying for a targeted tsunami. nt

[NBachers]

10. I'd settle for a meteor impact crater.

[Vinca]

4. Will he be dragging his orange ass down there for New Years eve? That's what they've been

promising the ticket buyers as they turn a buck off the office of POTUS.

[Siwsan]

8. I read, today, that he's not going

He will be in DC. However, that doesn't mean that the rest of his family won't be there.

[malaise]

14. Bet he goes

He has no plan of missing his for-profit tax payer subsidized party.

[mopinko]

30. he's prolly thinking

it will go over like the iraq trip, cuz he'll make it a surprise.

[spanone]

5. K&R...👍🏼👍🏼

[dameatball]

6. Okay, I read the entire article and I still do not understand why the SS needs to pay for tents.

I get that if some of the Trump family are in attendance that the SS would be there also. That is their job. But paying for tents should be the responsibility of the profit makers. This is such BS.

[In_The_Wind]

7. How many of those 800,00 will become homeless if the furlough continues?

How many will have their credit rating affected by the government shutdown?

[smirkymonkey]

9. Can we consider this the family's "Let them eat cake" moment?

What an outrage! Federal employees aren't getting paid and we, the taxpayers, are paying to host a PRIVATE, FOR-PROFIT, NYE party at Mar-A-Lago for a bunch of Trump family sycophants and vulgar social-climbers.

[citizen blues]

24. They've had many "Let them eat cake" moments

This is just the latest ones. I've stopped calling him President or Trump. Instead, I refer to him as King Louis and Melania as Marie Antoinette. Tone deaf, clueless, entitled, spoiled, sociopaths who care for nothing and no one besides themselves and the wretched, overweening, vermin offspring.


Nick Hanauer makes the point about the growing economic inequality, and what's going to happen to those in the wealthy criminal class from banksters to the Trumps.

[link:

|

[UpInArms]

11. As the national debt clock edges closer to $22 Trillion

http://www.usdebtclock.org/#

[Totally Tunsie]

12. Did they send Melanoma down there to justify the government paying

for the SS coverage and tent rentals?

After returning from a surprise visit to Iraq, Melania traveled to Palm Beach on Thursday night.

[malaise]

13. They sent Ivanka and Jared

In advance

[Totally Tunsie]

15. Yup, but Melanoma is apparently now there also.

Will Donnie be "all alone" in the WH for NYE?

[malaise]

17. Oh My

He'll get there one way or another

[not fooled]

22. Mystery attendee at Mar-A-Lago NYE party

[link:|]


source:
[link:https://socialnewsdaily.com/70521/trump-plans-to-dress-in-camo-and-crash-the-royal-wedding/|]

[Totally Tunsie]

27. LOL...Now, WHOOOOO could that be?

Lord Asshole, I presume?

[catbyte]

16. ...

[citizen blues]

20. This deserves to be its own post.... NT

[Hermit-The-Prog]

29. seconded!

[marieo1]

18. Why? Why? Why?

I don't get it - why doesn't someone put a stop to this BS? Am I the only one that is angry about these shameful abuses of power!!

[DENVERPOPS]

19. A drop in the bucket

Those amounts are a drop in the bucket. The cost to the Secret Service is un-fathomable.
Not only that, but the cost of the thousands of Sailors involved in the security of the Coast Guard on shore and off shore probably cannot be easily tabulated. AND BEST OF ALL, THE COAST GUARD PERSONNEL ARE NOT BEING PAID DUE TO TRUMPS GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN, as they are not considered a part of the U.S. Military!!!!

I would love to be a TRUE journalist/reporter and interview, off the record some of those coast guard members about how the feel being assigned to the Security of a Trump money making party. And to go to Iraq and interview soldiers there about the egregious lie by the president about them having not had a raise in ten years, and esp how they all are planning on spending their "Ten Percent Total Fantasy" pay raise promised to them by Trump.

Just when are the members of the military from the bottom to the top Officers and directors going to get wise that they are and have been getting totally screwed by the Republican Presidents and Republican members of the U.S. congress for over twenty years??????? What will it take???????

WASF

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

21. K&R

[ancianita]

23. Rich partiers carry on. For the rest of us La Lucha continua. The fight continues. We need to make

him give back every last damn dime of it.

[The Wizard]

25. A Russian submarine

lurking off the coast can ruin that party.

[Cha]

28. Party UP Russia's Puppets.. your

day is coming.

[demmiblue]

31. Kick

The US government may be shut down, but taxpayers are footing the bill for Mar-a-Lago party tents

At loggerheads with Congress over funding his signature border wall, president Donald Trump shut down large swaths of the federal government at midnight on Friday (Dec. 21). Roughly 800,000 federal employees are affected, many of whom will remain on furlough without pay if the shutdown continues.

But even as much of the federal government grinds to a halt, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort still needs tents for the winter party season—and taxpayers are footing at least $54,000 of the bill.

According to government spending data, Grimes Events & Party Tents Inc. of Delray Beach, Florida was paid $54,020 by the US Secret Service on December 19 for “TENT RENTAL FOR MAL.”

An employee named Honey who answered the phone at Grimes Events & Party Tents told Quartz, “We are providing tents for the Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve party, yes.”

The Secret Service also uses tents for security purposes, often as holding areas for vehicles and VIPs.

Last year, the Secret Service spent $26,457.28 to rent lights, generators, tables and tents for the Mar-a-Lago New Year’s bash, according to Newsweek. Guests will pay $1,000 per person to attend the 2018 Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve party, up from $750 last year and $575 the year before, according to published reports. Club members will pay $650 this year, up from $600 in 2017. Ticket prices do not include 20% gratuity and 7% tax, which boosts the price of a $1,000 ticket to $1,270.

https://qz.com/1506879/trumps-mar-a-lago-party-tents-are-costing-taxpayers-54000/