Eugene Robinson: Trump is having his cake and golfing, too

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

President Trump’s spending of public money on his own ease and comfort is lavish and wasteful. His attitude toward taxpayers seems to be, roughly: Let them eat “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen.”

That is how the president described the dessert he shared with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate, which has become his weekend White House. Trump chose that moment of indulgence to inform Xi that U.S. cruise missiles had been fired into Syria. War is hell, but I guess Trump also sees it as an opportunity to indulge his sweet tooth.

I don’t begrudge Trump his empty calories. But his frequent trips to Florida, complete with the entourage that necessarily attends the modern presidency, have put him on pace to spend roughly as much on leisure travel in one year as Barack Obama spent in eight.

The president made a show of declining the $400,000 annual salary that comes with the job. But the most widely cited estimate of what one presidential trip to Mar-a-Lago costs — based on the known price of one Florida trip Obama took — is $3.6 million. And of the 13 weekends since Trump was sworn in, he has spent seven in Palm Beach.

A conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, estimated that Obama cost taxpayers $97 million in leisure travel costs during his two terms. As a private citizen, Trump was sharply critical of Obama’s travel spending, calling him a “habitual vacationer.” But Obama now looks like a relative cheapskate, while it is Trump who seems unable to break the habit.

http://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/robinson-trump-is-having-his-cake-and-golfing-too/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=588a1d3e9f-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-588a1d3e9f-228635337

[DK504]

1. I do begrudge his god damn chocolate cake.

I do begrudge him his chocolate cake on the patio that he uses as a SKIF and telling a hostile foreign government our military actions.

I do begrudge this traitor using 400 million dollar bomb to try to take away from his collusion in disrupting our election and now other countries as well. He needs to be thrown out of office right now.

[Hortensis]

2. John Dean of the Nixon administration has written

a number of books explaining his observations that conservatives who've acquired power always abuse it and use it to distribute the spoils of "winners" among themselves. My words, not his. Conservative leadership is synonymous with cronyism and abuse of power for personal profit.

Of course Rump is displaying his contempt and disregard for "the little people" by lavishly wasting our hard-earned money on his pleasure. No shame. It's his due accruing to his superiority. Just wish some conservative true believer had offered me big odds on that one; but sadly, they do believe it's appropriate for those holding the cake cutter to give most to themselves as long as people like them get a bit also.

(Btw, that last is proven in study after study. Liberals and libertarians are the ones who say, no way, piss on that! Though libertarians believe the strongest should get the whole cake itself if they can, screw elites and screw moral or legal duty to share, while liberals think it should be shared among all who created it in some equitable distribution, plus to others in need.)