Let’s not get too dewy-eyed about President Donald Trump’s reported decision to donate the first quarter earnings of his $400,000 presidential salary to the National Park Service – and therefore perhaps some share of it to the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.
After all, Trump has no problem whatsoever wasting more than $3 million a pop (one GAD estimate) to spend weekends at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. That $3 million, by the way, is almost as much as the roughly $3.4 million operating budget of the Chickamauga park.
Meanwhile, Trump’s budget proposal called for the Department of the Interior’s budget to be slashed by $1.6 billion. Against that backdrop, his White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, in April posed for a photo opportunity handing a check to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Harpers Ferry National Historic Park Superintendent Tyrone Brandyburg. The message was unmistakable. The president wanted to be congratulated for donating three months presidential salary – $78,333 – to the National Park Service.
Trump’s check amounted to 2.6 percent of what we taxpayers spend for just one Trump weekend vacation to Florida. And to date, our president has made 25 trips to Mar-a-Lago.
Tab to us – and at the expense of parks like ours and other important U.S. spending? A whooping $75 million.