Many of you are familiar with the Turkish proverb, “A fish stinks from the head down.”  From an organizational perspective, it means simply that any systemic problems which exist within an entity can be traced back to the leadership.

If you’ve been paying attention the last few months you know that there has been a rash of expenditures by cabinet members and senior officials of the Trump administration which, at best, seem inappropriate and may be violations of the law.  To name a few:

• EPA administrator Scott Pruitt spent $43,000 on a soundproof telephone booth even though there were already two secured communications spaces available for his use.
• Ben Carson ordered a $31,000 dining room set for his office.  When told the purchase would be a violation of the $5,000 cap for office improvements for incoming department heads, the always chivalrous Carson blamed his wife.
• Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke billed taxpayers for a $139,000 for new doors to is office.
• Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has racked up over $1.0 million in airfare for questionable travel, including the trip to Ft. Knox, Kentucky with his wife during which they viewed the solar eclipse.

But you knew all that.  What might have flown under the radar screen is the amount of money taxpayers are coughing up to underwrite efforts to downplay marital discord between Donald and Melania Trump.  On Monday, Trump departed for Mar-a-Lago where he will be hosting Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and his wife.  Despite Mrs. Trump’s obvious displeasure with news of her husband’s relationships with an adult movie star and a Playboy playmate, she has continued to attend official functions such as the White House Easter Egg Roll and the upcoming Abe visit.  But at what cost?

Monday, the Palm Beach Post reported Mrs. Trump arrived on a smaller version of Air Force One at the Palm Beach International Airport hours before her husband.  Furthermore, to avoid embarrassing pictures of both planes sitting on the tarmac, Mrs. Trump’s plane departed an hour before Trump and his entourage landed.  A picture of Mrs. Trump’s arrival and the wire service update announcing her touchdown is provided below.

Newspaper sources report the cost of operating Air Force One, the Boeing 747 which is generally used by the chief executive is $200,000 per hour.  I could not find numbers related to the cost of operating the second official government plane.    At a minimum, it must be at least a quarter of the what the 747 costs.  Therefore, the two-hour flight each way from Andrews to Palm Beach and back is around $200,000.  I can understand Melania wanting to keep her distance from her husband, but especially on Tax Day, I bristle at the thought that we are adding to the deficit because they cannot find niches of separation on a jumbo jet.

 Just one more example how the moocher-in-chief is ripping off the country, but more importantly, his supporters.  A report in the Washington Post states that one out of every five dollars donated this year to the Republic National Committee (RNC) has been spent on Trump’s defense.  Personally, I think that’s a better use of the money than buying disinformation ads for wannabe sycophant members of Congress in the mid-term elections.

Separate beds.  That’s your option. Wasting Republican money on anything but trying to elect more Republicans.  Fine with me.  Separate planes.  That’s a little much, especially when it’s on our dime.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP