The following article by Melissa Boteach was posted on the Center for American Progress website July 20, 2017:
President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, and their son Barron Trump board Air Force One, June 30, 2017.
President Donald Trump’s frequent and lavish vacations have been well documented. He has been away on vacation at his resorts in Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster Township more than 40 percent of the weekends he has been president, asking taxpayers to foot a record-breaking $28.6 million bill.
The job of president is grueling and taking some vacation is understandable. But Trump seems to have two standards for spending taxpayer dollars. When it comes to his own vacations at his family’s properties, money is no object. After all, it’s going back into his family’s own pockets anyway. But when it comes to the nation’s children, his Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney emphasizes that the government needs to eliminate summer enrichment programs for low-income children out of “compassion” for the taxpayer.
The cost of Trump’s budget-busting vacations must be measured not just in dollars but in the lost opportunities for the kids who benefit from these summer enrichment programs. Trump has proposed eliminating the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which helps children in high-poverty communities access after-school and summer programs that are critical to closing the achievement gap. In the summer of 2015 alone, 279,314 students across every state participated in summer enrichment programs funded by this grant; that’s more than a quarter of a million children who could lose summer enrichment if Trump’s budget proposal becomes a reality. Yet for what the taxpayers have coughed up for Trump’s vacations in the first six months of his presidency alone, 19,039 children could benefit from high-quality summer enrichment programs. Continue reading “Trump Vacations While Slashing Summer Programs for Low-Income Kids”