Donald Trump loves to golf and that is no secret.
It’s pretty darned expensive when the president goes golfing, too, with the last estimated tally in late March coming in at more than $26 million spent on the fairways since being sworn-in back on Jan. 20.
And, apparently, for Loudon County, Virginia, Trump’s love for the game is just about to break them.
Residents who live near the Trump National Golf Club there are voicing their displeasure with his frequent visits because they say they either get locked down in their homes or kept from accessing their homes altogether.
“It doesn’t matter who we voted for,” Mara Moreland told WUSA9. “We Just want to be able to access our house.
“I tried to show (law enforcement) my ID,” she said. “I tried to tell them that I live here. They basically said to me, ‘Nobody in, nobody out.’”
That is just part of the problem, though
The county, itself, said that it is struggling to pay for Trump’s trips, and it is not being refunded any of the expenses. Per WUSA9, the Loudon County Sheriff’s Office said that it coordinates with Secret Service while Trump is golfing, and the time is taxing its overtime budget.
“We are not being reimbursed for that,’ Lt. Col. Christopher Sawyer told the Loudon County Board of Supervisors. “We have asked in writing and we will continue to ask because the resources are significant.”
Sawyer told the board that the “overtime budget is not designed to support this.”
“So, the taxpayers in Loudon County are paying taxes so the president of the United States can play golf and we’re not being reimbursed for that cost?” Vice Chair and Ashburn District Supervisor Michael Turner asked, per WUSA9. “What if we just didn’t provide the service since we’re not being reimbursed? Are there some legal obligation that local law enforcement has to reinforce the president’s golf games?”
WUSA9 said Sawyer said the sheriff’s office has provided “presidential support” for every sitting president when the Secret Service has asked.
“That does not mean that they get everything because there hits a point where we say, ‘No, we can’t provide certain levels because it just becomes too much,’” he said.
Turner asked if the country was “required to provide if we’re not being reimbursed?”
“I don’t know that the federal government can require us to do that?” Sawyer answered per WUSA9. “However, security in Loudon County we take that pretty seriously, and the last thing we want is an incident occurring in Loudon County.”
Julie Briskman, the chair of the county’s finance committee, has asked for a detailed report on how much the county is spending on Trump’s visits.
“With everything going on with quote-unquote waste, fraud, and abuse, I decided that we should figure out how much this is costing the county,” Briskman said.
Briskman claimed that the “Florida Sheriff who is responsible for the Mar-a-Lago area is coming to his board of commissioners for $45 million because of how many times Trump has been coming down to Mar-a-Lago.”
“So again we’re responsible for taxpayer funding and allocating those dollars, and I can tell you a $45 million bill from our sheriff’s department to protect President Trump would not be going over very well with our taxpayers,” she said.