April 15: On This Day In 2017
Happy Tax Day: Ever wonder what the government does with all that money we give it?
Unfortunately, the Trump Administration wasted billions of what we sent in, starting OTDI 2017. Some of that waste was to cover up his poor decision-making. Some of it went into…the Trump Family’s bank accounts. Here are just four of the ways Trump’s awful decisions cost Americans.
His foolish war with China. Against the advice of most experts, Trump decided to start a trade war. Two net impacts for Americans: 1) Many products you buy are now more expensive; 2) American farmers and other producers saw their annual revenues drastically plummet. So Trump had to give our farmers tens of billions of dollars every year just to make up for what he was costing them in lost business. And those funds came from… us. In fact, the cost to taxpayers to coverup for this Trump Blunder dwarfed taxpayer spending on such ordinary expenses as Navy ship building, nuclear forces, and NASA. That’s to solve problems which Trump – and Trump alone – chose to create.
Trump raised the national debt by a shocking amount. When the amount we owe soars, so do our annual interest payments. Under Trump, costs soared an additional $123 billion per year just for the interest expense alone. And that was simply under Trump’s normal operations, before Covid. So who pays that extra $123 billion each year? We do, via our April 15 taxes.
His pet wall. He spent roughly $15 billion on it. Very little new barrier was actually built to block holes. Some of it cost $45 million per mile. (The southern border is nearly 2,000 miles long; you do the math). And yet, Trump now tells us that more illegal immigrants than ever are now sneaking across. So…what did we get for our money? Of course he had promised he’d build the whole thing for only $8 billion, and that Mexico would pay for it, not you.
Payments for the Trump Family. Donald and the Trump Family abused regulations covering their many vacations and hundreds of golfing trips. Their trips cost us enormous amounts—much of went right back to the Trump Family coffers. As Jordan Libowitz noted for NBC News: “By repeatedly charging the Secret Service as much as five times the allowable government rate to protect his family at Trump properties, Trump twisted the Secret Service’s protective mission into a personal cash cow — all while apparently lying about it to taxpayers.”
This is only one tiny example, but it’s indicative of how the Trump Family misused the taxpayer funds: “When Eric Trump visited Washington…the nightly government rate was supposed to be capped at $242 per night; the Trump hotel billed the Secret Service $1,160.” They add: “It’s worth mentioning that the White House has guest rooms.”
So? “What Trump figured out – the autocrats that I study…they all do this – they operate in this space where no law actually prohibits, but soft norms govern. And because there is no law, it’s hard to hold them to account. That’s how democracies collapse,” said Kim Scheppele, the Princeton expert on failed governments, at CNN.
Oh!
Dive Deeper
A National Foundation for American Policy analysis detailed the ballooning subsidies he had to make to farmers
CREW detailed Secret Service spending at Trump properties
The Guardian wrote about taxpayer spending for Trump’s trips
NBC News has some updates on what we spent for the Trump Family
Annual interest payments are posted by the Fed
Forbes "Trump spent $15 billion on border wall but skimped on vaccines"
More wall data from US News
ProPublica has the $8 billion promise
The problems with profiting from the taxpayers are shown here on CNN
Summary: What did Trump do with those tax dollars you sent him? Trump wastes your tax dollars, and keeps some of it.