Turns out “Freedom” isn’t free — and neither is Trump’s sparsely attended 250th anniversary bash.
The Department of the Interior is going back to Congress with its hand out again, this time asking for another $10 million to cover costs from this summer’s Freedom 250 festivities: a Christian prayer service, the Great American State Fair, and the July 4th fireworks show that tried (and failed) to set a world record. That’s on top of the $150 million Congress already handed over — money the administration swore private donors would supplement.
Instead, taxpayers are footing more of the bill. According to Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees National Mall funding, the administration first tried to slip the request into a more extensive stopgap spending bill without specifying an amount, The Independent reports.
When his office pushed for details, officials gave one explanation to his staff — routine National Park Service costs — and a different one entirely to the Washington Post, which reported the request needed to cover “elevated security” after several high-profile incidents in D.C., including an attack at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner and vandalism around the Mall.