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Republicans try to siphon off $1 billion of our money for Trump

31 0
10.05.2026

Republicans love to claim that they're the party of fiscal responsibility. Yet when it comes to giving President Donald Trump everything he wants, they’re more than happy to shell out serious cash – and have the American people foot the bill.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Republicans rolled out a roughly $70 billion package proposal on May 4 that would use taxpayer dollars to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol. Tucked into the bill is a $1 billion appropriation for Trump’s ballroom – you know, the one taxpayers weren’t supposed to be responsible for.

“Not one penny is being used from the federal government,” Trump told reporters in November. This is only true by technicality – Republicans are stressing that the $1 billion won’t be used for construction, but rather “security adjustments and upgrades.”

The $400 million project – which, by the way, was only supposed to cost $200 million, and is being funded by major companies like Lockheed Martin and Palantir – was already inappropriately extravagant for a country whose national debt just surpassed its annual gross domestic product for the first time since World War II. 

But to spend an additional $1 billion on a ballroom that no one actually wants when........

© USA TODAY