All Those Mar-a-Lago Trips Are Already Adding Up

As conservatives, we are supposed to believe in fiscal responsibility and the appropriate use of whatever money the government handles.

For all our shouting about the national debt, budget deficits, and Obama’s golf trips and vacations, however, many conservatives are staying shockingly quiet about the fact that Donald Trump has spent about $10 million in taxpayer dollars so far in trips to Mar-a-Lago.

And he shows no sign of stopping those trips either.

Granted, when folks like CBS cover Trump’s spending, we should laugh and point to the lack of continuous coverage on what Obama’s trips cost the taxpayers. But, we should also be outraged that the president conservatives are falling in line with is set to outspend Obama by… a lot.

Between Secret Service and police surrounding the estate, and the U.S. Coast Guard in the surrounding waters, Mar-a-Lago is a fortress when the president is here. The White House won’t disclose the exact cost of Mr. Trump’s visits, but the $10 million estimate is based on figures from a similar trip by President Obama in 2013.

Air Force One accounts for a big chunk of the presidential travel budget, costing more than $180,000 per hour to operate, reports CBS News correspondent Manuel Bojorquez. That means the roughly four-hour roundtrip flight to his seaside estate costs more than $700,000.

“If he’s going down there every weekend, the costs are going to add up pretty quickly,” said Tom Fitton, president of watchdog group Judicial Watch. Fitton is pressing the administration to release Mr. Trump’s travel costs.

“He doesn’t need to go to Florida every weekend. He can work at the White House or up at Camp David,” Fitton said.

Here’s the thing, though – Trump frequently attacked Obama for his frequent vacations and how much taxpayer money Obama spent on his trips. Don’t believe me? Here.

President @BarackObama‘s vacation is costing taxpayers millions of dollars—-Unbelievable!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2012

CBS’s estimates have Obama wasting about $97 over the course of eight years. If that number holds (I would have thought it to be much higher, honestly…), then Trump is going to go way beyond that. Hell, but the CBS estimate, he’s on track to beat that $97 million before the end of his first year as president.

We should absolutely hold Trump accountable for this, not only because he attacked the last president over his trips, but also because he has been voted on by conservatives and has himself said that he would be fixing the spending problems in Washington D.C.

Right now, he only seems to be exacerbating them.

The post All Those Mar-a-Lago Trips Are Already Adding Up appeared first on RedState.