Taxpayers are now picking up most of Donald Trump’s air travel costs, unnecessarily spending millions of dollars because he insists on flying aboard his luxury 757 instead of a practical plane.
And because the GOP presidential nominee owns both the company that owns the jetliner and the one that operates it, some percentage of that taxpayer money is likely winding up as profit in Trump’s personal bank account.
The bombastic businessman has often bragged about the comforts of his ride, with its full bedroom, shower and 24-karat gold-plated bathroom fixtures. But because it seats so few passengers, Trump’s Secret Service agents appear to make up more than half of the plane’s flight manifests. And that means taxpayers are now legally required to pick up the majority of its staggering running costs.
Over the first three months of this year, after Trump asked for and received Secret Service protection, the agency’s payments to his campaign accounted for 48 percent of the $1.7 million that it paid Tag Air Inc., the candidate’s company that operates the aging jet.
Politico, which first reported these payments, put the total the Secret Service paid to the Trump campaign at $1.6 million. But a closer look at campaign finance filings shows that the U.S. Secret Service covered more than $2.3 million of the $3.8 million Trump’s campaign has paid Tag Air in 2016.
This lavish spending, though, came at the expense of donors who willingly gave money to Trump. The Secret Service payments to fly on Trump’s glitzy but inefficient plane hit taxpayers, potentially creating problems for him if public anger translates into a drop in support, the Center for Responsive Politics’ Bob Biersack said.
“The issue is that he’s chosen that particular plane,” Biersack said, adding that FEC commissioners likely never contemplated that a candidate would choose such an extravagant mode of transportation. Nor did anyone guess that taxpayers could wind up on the hook if it did happen, Biersack added. “It was never anticipated that the proportion of campaign travelers would be so heavily tilted toward federal officials.” Cont.
Story from - Huffington Post
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