Due to President Trump’s frequent visits to his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida Democrats are pushing for new legislation to be passed that requires President Trump to inform the congress who is meeting in Mar-a-Lago. I think we should know what the president is up to at all times when it comes down to official business.
We all pay taxes, so I don’t want the president using those tax dollars to go play a nice game of golf at his privately-owned golf resort while conducting business that may change the United States with people who remain a mystery to us. I believe we have the right to know who the president meets with when it comes down to matters of official business; however the president does deserve his privacy when it comes to personal matters.
I just don’t appreciate how our president is treating his job like a joke. The name of this new legislation has been dubbed the Mar-a-Lago, short for “Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act.”
An article from the Washington post says this act was first brought to the table by Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Tom Carper of Delaware and Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois. Not only does this legislation require President Trump to list who he meets in Mar-a-Lago, but also in any other location where the President does official business on a regular basis.
Many people are split on this issue. Should we respect the president’s privacy or should we have him be transparent and more accountable for what he does while conducting official business away from the White House?One simply just don’t go to a golf course and drink fine wine while discussing important policies.
As a side note, dear President Trump has played more golf than Obama has in his entire time in office and he has only been in office for 70 days. Trump even complained that he thought Obama was playing too much golf during his 2016 campaign trail saying, “I’m going to be working for you, I’m not going to have time to play golf.” Well Mr. President, it seems like you made the time to play more golf than Obama did in his eight years in office.
Trump has moved the White House to any location that he desires, which I find frustrating, but I’m not the only one. Richard Painter, the former ethics lawyer for the George W. Bush administration, voiced his own problems with Trump’s whimsical way of conducting official business.
He said, “Under those circumstances, in which taxpayers are paying for you to do government work and for your Secret Service protection, they’re entitled to know what private parties are moving in and out of there.” I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Painter on that.
Transparency is important between a nation and their President, and if the President isn’t transparent, people will begin to feel even more untrusting of the American government. Now, in this time of uncertainty, doubt and suspicion, these are the last things the American people need to feel towards their government.
Pablo Flores can be contacted at pflores@kscequinox.com
