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Travel

Trump's on Track to Spend More on Travel in One Year Than Obama Ever Did

His trips to Mar-a-Lago have already cost taxpayers an estimated $21 million—whereas Obama spent roughly $97 million over eight years.
Drew Schwartz
Brooklyn, US
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

For a president who vowed he wouldn't "have time to go play golf" and slammed Obama for wasting taxpayer money taking vacations, Donald Trump has already spent a lot of cash visiting his various private clubs around the country. Trump's trips to Mar-a-Lago alone have likely cost taxpayers an estimated $21 million—placing the president on par to outspend Obama's eight years worth of travel in just one, CNN reports.

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During his eight years in office, Obama spent a total of roughly $97 million on travel, according to Judicial Watch. That number includes both personal and business trips, which took Obama to places like Aspen, Martha's Vineyard, and the Everglades.

The government has withheld the price tag on Trump's trips to Florida, and until a government accountability group gets a better idea, all we've got is an educated guess. According to the Government Accountability Office, Obama took a four-day trip to Florida that cost around $3.6 million back in 2013. Since Trump has already made six similar trips since become president, the government has likely already spent approximately $21.6 million on travel.

But that's low-balling it, given the fact that the president has also traveled to his other golf clubs at least 19 days since he was sworn in, according to the New York Times.

It's a bit of a paradox that Trump—who campaigned on a promise to stop wasting public money and recently proposed cutting $54 million of government funding from pretty much everything except the military—has sunk so much cash into his own travel.

According to CNN, Trump's aides have said the president will likely taper off his visits to Mar-a-Lago come May, and start switching off between visiting his golf club in New Jersey and Trump Tower in New York—where it cost more than $300,000 a day to protect him before he moved to DC. Tie in the fact that the Secret Service requested $60 million extra to cover protection and travel for the Trump family in 2018, and the estimated cost to taxpayers climbs even higher.

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