If you browse the database of federal spending, available at USAspending.gov, you’ll find lots of Lockheed Martins, lots of Amazons, and thousands of small businesses among the federal vendors. You’ll also find two entries for Joseph R. Biden, Jr., the former vice president and former Democratic front-runner.
Biden received two federal contracts from the Department of Homeland Security for the “lease/rental of other federal buildings.” The contracts cover April 1, 2011 to Sept. 30, 2017, and they add up to $171,600. This was the $2,200 per month the Secret Service paid to rent a cottage on the Bidens’ Wilmington, Delaware, property so that agents could be there on-site to protect the vice president.
This is relevant today because of the similarities to and differences from the Secret Service’s hefty rents paid to Trump-owned properties during the Trump administration.
The similarity is this: Being president or vice president shouldn’t give you an easy way to make money while you’re in office. The Bidens rented out a cottage. Being a landlord brings with it risks, such as nonpayment, needy tenants, or destructive tenants. The Secret Service is, presumably, a much easier tenant with no risk of nonpayment, and it even paid five, six, 12 months in advance, according to federal records.
That’s not a massive benefit, and the Bidens look to have charged market rates, but it’s still a benefit to have the money months in advance with the risks and costs mitigated dramatically. Other presidents, including George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, did not charge the Secret Service, even though they could have.
In effect, yes, I’m saying Biden should have made a financial sacrifice in order to be vice president. He had a million-dollar-a-year pension lined up. He’s reportedly worth $9 million now. His children were grown and out of the house. If there’s a gray area on whether you’re financially benefiting from your government job, you ought to err on the side of not benefiting. That’s part of being a public servant.
This brings us to Trump. The Secret Service rents rooms or cottages at Trump’s very expensive clubs and hotels. Although White House and Trump Organization officials have asserted that the Secret Service just pays at cost, records reported by the Washington Post’s David Farenthold indicate otherwise. Sometimes the Secret Service has paid $650 to rent one room at Mar-a-Lago for one night.
Reportedly, the Secret Service paid Trump in just three months what it had paid Biden in more than six years. In 2017, the Secret Service rented a three-bedroom cottage at Trump’s New Jersey golf course for three whole months, paying $17,000 a month. That is, taxpayers paid as much for one summer of the Trump cottage as they did for two years of the Biden cottage.
These numbers dwarf the Biden numbers, which makes them more ethically troubling. They are also more troubling because they are more unnecessary. Biden was getting protection at his home. Trump is getting protection at his very expensive clubs. His decision to stay in these places drives up the price to the taxpayer of Trump’s protection, and it ensures that rents are flowing to Trump.
Even if Trump were just charging “cost,” as his family has claimed, it would benefit his business on any night that those resorts weren’t sold-out by potentially driving up food and beverage costs. But there’s good reason to believe Trump’s properties charged the Secret Service more than just the cost of housekeeping, Farenthold’s new reporting suggests.
So Trump is profiting off his position as president by driving up costs on taxpayers. If it would cost Trump lots of money to let the Secret Service stay for free, well, maybe that’s the sort of sacrifice Trump should make, since he’s a billionaire whose job is now to take care of the country, not his own companies. It hardly seems unreasonable, given that he makes a big show of donating his salary.
Alternatively, Trump could try to vacation in places where protection costs would be lower.
Yes, I’m asking Trump, like Biden, to make a sacrifice. That’s what public service is all about.
