Trending
Robert H. Workman
Lock Haven
While cutting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, he's costing taxpayers billions. Yet his DOGE is supposed to be cutting waste. They need to start with Trump. His golfing alone is costing taxpayers millions. Also, where's the outrage from Republicans? Congress is a bunch of wimps who are afraid of Trump. Under Obama's presidency, Republicans screamed about him playing golf.
And he lies about everything. Anyone know where I can get gas for $1.98 a gallon?
And now, he's telling Walmart to eat the costs of his tariffs. Wonder what he would do if it was one of his companies being affected. Doing that so he can say, see, my tariffs aren't raising costs.
We taxpayers have already spent $3.9 billion on building Air Force One. Boeing was commissioned to build two new custom 747-8s into Air Force One in 2018. A press release said the use of dark blue paint on the plane's exterior design, as requested by the White House in 2019, had led to additional heat testing. The project also faces additional pressure from the GOP, some of whom argue it is among "the biggest government boondoggles" and should face further public scrutiny. According to a February 2025 statement from Republican Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks, the bill would "rein in Washington's wasteful spending" and hold "excessively costly and delayed" projects to account.
The Exorbitant Cost of
Refitting a Qatari Boeing 747-8
Qatari officials said the plane was being given by the Qatari Ministry of Defense to the Pentagon. However, Trump said the Boeing 747-8 jet will be used as the official presidential plane, and, according to multiple reports, after he leaves office, it will be transferred to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation. In other words, he would have a flying palace like the King he wants to be, all at the cost of taxpayers.
A statement by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt sent to Newsweek said: "Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws. President Trump's Administration is committed to full transparency." Laughable.
The cost to refit the Qatari plane to Air Force One standard could range from $750 million to $1 billion, with a timeline of over two years. And guess who will pay to have all the refitted changes back to a normal plane.
On Feb. 9, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump became the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl.
Air Force One flew to Trump's private Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Feb. 7 before flying to New Orleans for the Super Bowl. According to the press pool report, the flight from Washington to Mar-a-Lago was one hour and 48 minutes. The Feb. 9 pool report said the flight from Mar-a-Lago to New Orleans was approximately one hour and 34 minutes and the return flight from New Orleans to Washington was one hour and 51 minutes, bringing the total flight time for the journey to an estimated five hours and 13 minutes. This does not count flight time in Marine One to and from the White House.
In 2022, defense industry news outlet The War Zone published FOIA findings showing that, according to the Air Force, the president's plane costs approximately $177,843 per flight-hour. This means that it cost taxpayers around $927,747.65 for an estimated 313 minutes of flight time to and from the Super Bowl.
This estimate does not include calculations for other aircraft that fly alongside Air Force One, and these figures have also likely changed since 2021.
At any given time, the U.S. president travels with at least 80 Secret Service members, according to Ronald Kessler, an author who specializes in the Secret Service. This is a conservative estimate, given the enormous exposure and high-stakes nature of the Super Bowl event. It's also possible that the Secret Service upped security standards following the assassination attempt of Trump in July 2024. However, for the sake of estimating a minimum cost, we assumed 80 Secret Service agents were present. According to the official Secret Service website, starting salaries for agents range from $49,508 to $64,009. Assuming the median salary for the 80 agents present was somewhere around $57,000 and the daily salary for a 40-hour work week is about $219, the Secret Service cost at least $17,520 for the day. Again, this is a conservative estimate.
For reference, the Department of Homeland Security deployed 385 security personnel at the 2024 Super Bowl in Las Vegas. At the 2025 Super Bowl, the DHS deployed more than 690 personnel. It's unclear whether Trump's presence was the reason for this increase in security.
While we can provide a bare-minimum estimate of select costs such as air transportation and Secret Service work -- nearly $1 million -- this is only a fraction of the total cost of Trump's presence at the Super Bowl to American taxpayers.
Months of preparation leading up to the Super Bowl, local law enforcement work, amped-up security personnel by the DHS, extra security equipment, motorcade and helicopter trips to and from the game to the airport and the cost of attendance (and transportation) for other members of Trump's party are impossible to accurately estimate, as of this writing.
How is it possible in our country that a president can ignore all laws and our Constitution and get away with it? What has become of our country and its people? Are you just sitting back and hoping it will straighten itself out over time?
Our rights and freedom of speech are being taken away. People of color being deported without any due process while select whites from Africa can enter freely. The LGBTQ+ community being attacked, with trans people being kicked out of the military, denied care and help. Agencies that help people being defunded, even the suicide lines for our veterans. Better wake up and start to take action while you still can. His KGB style of attacking the free press, the judicial system, our education system and so many more.
I could fill the entire paper with the things he is doing and getting away with that are unethical, amoral, treasonous and illegal.