https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/20/trump-family-security-new-york-palm-beach-taxes?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Australia+Morning+mail+new+030615&utm_term=214208&subid=17659828&CMP=ema_1731

These figures are really scary, and the comparisons to what Obama cost are outrageous. And note that Trump is mainly leaving local government to pick up the tab.

Quote:

... it costs $500,000 per day for nearly 200 police officers to protect Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, which houses the Trump family business headquarters and serves as the home of the first lady, Melania Trump, and the couple’s son, Barron. The senator estimated the cost could rise to as much as $183m annually.

At current estimates, even a four-year Trump administration could be heading for a billion dollars in taxpayer-borne costs – an eight-fold increase of the $97m Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, estimates it cost to protect Barack Obama over the two terms of his administration...

Last week, officials in Palm Beach said the cost of hosting the president at his Mar-a-Lago estate amounted to $60,000 a day for police overtime.

Trump stayed at Mar-a-Lago for nearly 16 days, from 16 December to 1 January as president-elect, and has visited his private resort home on three consecutive weekends this month, driving up the costs to an estimated half-million dollars.

Kirk Blouin, the town’s director of public safety, told the Sun-Sentinel that the municipality was “overwhelmed”.

Trump’s frequent trips to his self-styled Winter White House in Florida are burdening local businesses. While Air Force One lands at Palm Beach, Lantana, the small airport near Mar-a-Lago, is closed for business during the president’s trips. A banner-flying company operating from there told the Chicago Tribune it has lost more than $40,000 in contracts.

Schumer said he would cooperate with Palm Peach counties in trying to claw back the costs, adding that the cost of protecting the president in Florida was “an additional and unusual expense”.

“We have not had a president with an auxiliary White House,” he added.

Using figures based on a government report analyzing White House travel, the Washington Post estimated Trump’s Florida trips have cost the federal government about $10m since his inauguration. That includes money for Coast Guard units to patrol the exposed shoreline and other military and security expenses...

...Additional costs are also mounting for protecting the Trump children in their daily lives and on their frequent business trips abroad.

Last week, Eric Trump and his brother, Donald Trump Jr, traveled to Dubai to open a Trump-branded golf course. Estimates compiled by the Washington Post, put the cost of Secret Service hotel bills alone in excess of $16,000. Meanwhile, Eric Trump’s trip to visit a Trump-brand condo tower in Uruguay cost an estimated $100,000 in hotel bills.

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Paul D