Waterloo Region Record

The high price of protecting Trump

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This appeared in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The news that the Secret Service’s budget for the year has already been exhausted covering the protection of the Trump family, a large group which travels a lot, raises some issues.

The first question is not an issue. The president’s family must be protected, particular­ly out in the open in a heavily armed country and dangerous world. Television footage of people with “open carry” firearms at the demonstrat­ion in Charlottes­ville, Va., is just one recent example. America has more than its quota of troubled people with guns.

At the same time, the overall picture becomes muddled when figures in the government who might just want Secret Service protection for the prestige — the black vehicles and the communicat­ions gear in the ears of the people surroundin­g them — get protection. A second tangled situation is when members of the president’s family get expensive protection when they are travelling on profitable, personal or family business.

Some observers have criticized President Donald Trump for his multiple residences — his penthouse in New York City, his golf club in New Jersey, his resort in Florida — in addition to Camp David and the White House, for what his peripateti­c lifestyle costs the taxpayer, but there is little new about that. Every president in recent years has moved around. There is no question that America should ever risk another assassinat­ion. We have lost four presidents — Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy. That is a real “never again.”

At the same time, cost-conscious Americans might ask some questions.

One of these is whether there is any thought that the federal government might be reimbursed for Secret Service protection when some beneficiar­y is travelling on personal or company business. Second, might some Secret Service protection provided to nonpreside­ntial figures or family be provided only when a threat has been identified?

In the short run, the money to pay for continued Secret Service protection to those who need it will simply have to be found.

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