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Haven't we gone a little overboard on this.
Posted on: April 10, 2017 at 08:00:05 CT
GA Tiger MU
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Seems Donald could pick up a little of this, especially if they have to INCREASE the budget instead of a decrease.
First Family’s Needs Strain Secret Service
Eleven weeks into the Trump presidency, the Secret Service is grappling with how to constrain the rising costs and unexpected strain that have come with protecting a new first family as large, mobile and high-profile as any in modern American history.
To keep up, dozens of agents from New York and field offices across the country are being temporarily pulled off criminal investigations to serve two-week stints protecting members of the Trump family, including the first lady and the youngest son in Manhattan’s Trump Tower.
Others, already assigned to the highly selective presidential protective division, had hoped for relief after a grueling election year. That hope has evaporated as they work more overtime hours and spend long stretches away from home because of the Trump family’s far-flung travel.
And in Washington, agency leaders are already negotiating for tens of millions of dollars in supplemental funding to help offset the sky-high costs of securing Trump Tower and other high-profile family assets like Mar-a-Lago in Florida. It is a figure that will only continue to rise.
“They are flat-out worn out,” said Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The committee’s top-ranking Democratic member, Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, gave an analogy: “It’s like being on a bike that you never get off of.”
Tracking the President’s Visits to Trump Properties
Ethics experts say Donald J. Trump’s visits to properties owned, managed or branded by the Trump Organization amount to free publicity for the company and blur the line between his family business and presidential duties.
The assessment has become increasingly apparent as the Secret Service grapples with what amounts to an increase of 40 percent more people under its protection compared with a noncampaign year.
There are growing concerns among current and former officials in the Homeland Security Department and on Capitol Hill not only about how the Secret Service will keep up, but also what it might mean for its long-term recovery from the high attrition, low morale and spending caps that have plagued it in recent years.
“I think if you were resource rich, you’d absorb it,” said Douglas A. Smith, who served as an assistant secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama. “It’s not that they aren’t competent enough to do the job, it’s just they’re stretched too thin.”
Given its responsibilities and the no-failure nature of its protective mission, the agency has little option in the near term but to try to do more with less. Indeed, the agency maintains that it can weather any adversity.
First Family’s Needs Strain Secret Service
Eleven weeks into the Trump presidency, the Secret Service is grappling with how to constrain the rising costs and unexpected strain that have come with protecting a new first family as large, mobile and high-profile as any in modern American history.
To keep up, dozens of agents from New York and field offices across the country are being temporarily pulled off criminal investigations to serve two-week stints protecting members of the Trump family, including the first lady and the youngest son in Manhattan’s Trump Tower.
Others, already assigned to the highly selective presidential protective division, had hoped for relief after a grueling election year. That hope has evaporated as they work more overtime hours and spend long stretches away from home because of the Trump family’s far-flung travel.
And in Washington, agency leaders are already negotiating for tens of millions of dollars in supplemental funding to help offset the sky-high costs of securing Trump Tower and other high-profile family assets like Mar-a-Lago in Florida. It is a figure that will only continue to rise.
“They are flat-out worn out,” said Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The committee’s top-ranking Democratic member, Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, gave an analogy: “It’s like being on a bike that you never get off of.”
Tracking the President’s Visits to Trump Properties
Ethics experts say Donald J. Trump’s visits to properties owned, managed or branded by the Trump Organization amount to free publicity for the company and blur the line between his family business and presidential duties.
The assessment has become increasingly apparent as the Secret Service grapples with what amounts to an increase of 40 percent more people under its protection compared with a noncampaign year.
There are growing concerns among current and former officials in the Homeland Security Department and on Capitol Hill not only about how the Secret Service will keep up, but also what it might mean for its long-term recovery from the high attrition, low morale and spending caps that have plagued it in recent years.
“I think if you were resource rich, you’d absorb it,” said Douglas A. Smith, who served as an assistant secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama. “It’s not that they aren’t competent enough to do the job, it’s just they’re stretched too thin.”
Given its responsibilities and the no-failure nature of its protective mission, the agency has little option in the near term but to try to do more with less. Indeed, the agency maintains that it can weather any adversity.
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Haven't we gone a little overboard on this. - GA Tiger MU - 4/10 08:00:05
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