https://michaeldsellers.substack.com/p/trump-makes-a-yuge-grab-for-white
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Trump is going to stiff taxpayers for the vanity ballroom that he keeps promising "someone else" is going to pay for. It is another cheap "Mexico is going to pay for the wall" con. Who is surprised? Oh and it is no longer costing $400 million, but he plans to stick us for $551 Million. But what is an extra Hundred million or two among friends!
Today the White House released its budget for the Executive Office of the President. Buried in it is something very strange. At first glance, the White House repair number looks normal enough: $5.975 million for repair, alteration, and improvement of the Executive Residence, including maintenance, safety and health issues, and preventive maintenance. That is the kind of figure one expects to see for upkeep on an old, heavily used building. But in the very same account sits a number that is anything but normal: $377 million for White House repair and restoration activity in 2026, followed by $174 million more in 2027. For context, the comparable figure shown for 2025 is $39 million. That is the story. The normal visible line is about six million dollars. Right next to it is an unprecedented nine-figure money stream attached to the presidential residence. And the budget does not present that fact in plain English because, if it did, the obvious response would be: what the hell is that? The moneyThere are really three separate numbers here. First, the ordinary repair-and-restoration appropriation: $5.975 million. Second, the Executive Residence operating-expenses line: $17.668 million. That is the routine account for running and maintaining the residence. And third, the giant figure that jumps off the page once anyone slows down long enough to see it: $377 million in 2026 and $174 million in 2027 in the same repair-and-restoration account. That third number is not remotely in the same universe as ordinary upkeep. It is not “some extra maintenance.” It is not “deferred repairs caught up all at once.” It is an enormous White House renovation money stream. Drill deeper: what the budget jargon is hidingThis is where the document starts speaking in accountant dialect. The giant number is described as “reimbursable program activity.” That sounds almost innocent, as if someone outside the government is footing the bill and the government is merely being repaid. That is not what appears to be happening here. The budget pairs this huge renovation stream with collections from Federal sources. Federal sources. Government sources. Not private donors. Not ballroom benefactors. Not Trump friends writing checks. Government money. So in this context, “reimbursable” does not mean what an ordinary reader would think it means. It appears to mean money moving from one part of the federal government into another part of the federal government for White House renovation work. Right pocket, left pocket. That is a very different thing from the way the budget describes true outside reimbursement for Executive Residence events. In that section, the document explicitly talks about sponsors paying in advance, deposits being maintained, bills being sent, and amounts being collected later. That is what actual reimbursement language looks like when outside parties are involved. The White House repair account is not written that way. And what about “mandatory”?This is where the budget stops being merely suspicious and starts becoming evasive. The ordinary White House repair line is easy to understand: $5.975 million appropriated in plain sight for repair, alteration, and improvement of the Executive Residence. That is the normal, visible number. The huge money is different. The budget labels that stream “mandatory.” In plain English, that means this is not just a straightforward annual line item Congress is being asked to approve in the usual way. It means the money is supposedly available through some other standing legal authority or preexisting funding mechanism. And here is the key point: the budget never clearly tells the reader what that authority is. It gives the number. It gives the jargon. It does not give a plain-English explanation of why a White House repair account suddenly has access to $350 million in 2026 and $174 million in 2027 in this separate stream of federal money. So the issue is not just that the number is huge. The issue is that the administration is effectively saying: trust us, there is some authority for this somewhere, and we are not going to make it easy for you to understand. That is what “mandatory” is doing here. It is not clarifying the money. It is helping bury it. Why this is alarmingA casual reader sees the ordinary White House repair figure — about $6 million — and keeps going. That is exactly how this kind of thing hides in plain sight. The normal number is clean and familiar. The abnormal number is parked nearby, but wrapped in enough budget gobbledygook that many readers will never realize they are looking at a nine-figure White House renovation stream. And even once the giant number is found, the document still refuses to level with the public in plain language. It does not clearly explain why the same account jumps from a recent baseline of $39 million to $377 million. It does not identify, in a way any normal person could follow, what preexisting authority supposedly justifies that jump. It just drops the number into the tables and moves on. That is not transparency. That is camouflage. The bottom lineStrip away the jargon and the picture is simple. The normal visible White House repair line is about $6 million. The separate Executive Residence operating line is about $17.7 million. But sitting beside them is a much larger stream of federal money: $377 million in 2026 and $174 million in 2027 tied to repair and restoration activity for the Executive Residence. That is not normal. It is not transparent. And it is not donor money galloping in to save the day. It is government money, presented in a way that makes its scale much harder to see — and much harder to question — than it should be. That is the scandal in the numbers. Trying to pierce the bullshit in this gave me a headache, which is usually a sign that someone, somewhere, does not want the public to understand what they are reading. I went through the actual budget document so you do not have to, and what emerges is evasive nonsense wrapped around a very large pile of money. If this kind of accountability work matters, a paid subscription helps keep it going. Sellers out—I’m serious about the headache. Back tomorrow! SOURCES https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp- https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp- https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp- https://apnews.com/article/ https://savingplaces.org/ https://savingplaces.org/ |
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