Secret Service runs up big tab renting golf carts to track Trump

Frank Cerabino

The federal government ought to buy a fleet of golf carts in Palm Beach County.

The Secret Service needs them when agents watch President Donald Trump play golf during his Palm Beach County weekends at Mar-a-Lago.

Which happens more than we had imagined.

In just the first three months of his presidency, the Secret Service has paid at least $35,185 in golf cart rentals during Trump’s Florida weekends, according to Department of Homeland Security contract documents.

If this pace keeps up, it would cost more than a half-million dollars for Florida golf cart rentals during his first administration.

You could buy one of those bullet-and-bomb-proof armored Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, the Army’s replacement of the Humvee, with that kind of money.

So before these golf cart rentals continue much longer, it just might be time to buy.

Plus, there’s something unseemly about the Secret Service going to Trump’s private golf courses to protect him while having to provide their own golf carts.

Aren’t there any golf carts at Trump International Golf Club near West Palm Beach that the Secret Service can use to protect Trump?

Ones they might not be billed for?

According to a partial contract, a Miami company called Golf Car & Utility Vehicle Distributors is renting golf carts to the Secret Service to be used for Florida presidential visits.

This might be understandable if Trump weren’t in the golf business with three South Florida golf courses. You would think he could scare up a few golf carts at Mar-a-Lago for the Secret Service to use there and then make some carts available to the Secret Service at his courses when he goes there to golf.

If I were a self-respecting fiscal hawk, I might be pointing out that renting golf carts to guard a golf-course-owning president is just the sort of wasteful government expense that might be addressed once we have a businessman in the White House.

But maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way.

The real story here could just be that the Secret Service is an easy mark.

After all, the protection service is also paying for the main-