Trump's travel to Mar-a-Lago alone probably cost taxpayers more than $64 million
That is some expensive executive time.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trumps-travel-to-mar-a-lago-alone-probably-cost-taxpayers-more-than-dollar64-million/ar-BBTdlpN?li=BBnbcA1
Since his first month in office, with his first weekend forays to his private retreat in Florida Mar-a-Lago questions have been raised about the cost of those trips. This isnt simple to figure out, given that the total includes costs incurred by various government agencies as well as costs associated with Trumps Secret Service protection. Although estimates of the cost existed, it would require a great deal of information from across the government to come up with an accurate total.
The Government Accountability Office gathered that information. On Tuesday, it released a report looking only at Trumps first four trips to Mar-a-Lago as president: on Feb. 3-6; Feb. 10-12; Feb. 17-20; and March 3-5, 2017.
The total? Just under $14 million, for an average cost of $3.4 million per trip. That includes about $8.5 million spent by the Defense Department and $5 million by the Department of Homeland Security. It also includes about $60,000 paid directly to Mar-a-Lago itself, $24,000 of which was for lodging for Defense Department personnel and $36,000 for operational space used by DHS.
The immediate question, of course, is how those costs extrapolate to all of Trumps visits. This invariably leads to some apples-oranges problems, but we can make some reasonable estimates.