A White House Makeover, Brought to You by Struggling National Parks

The pathway that connects the White House residence to the Oval Office has long been paved in Tennessee flagstone. Every president since Harry Truman made the 45-second commute, and made it without complaint, until Donald Trump. The dun rock would not do. Instead, Trump wanted polished African granite, carved in Italy, with a flamed-finish stripe—slightly raised, to prevent slips—running down the middle. As workers tore up the flagstone in March, a reporter asked Trump who was paying for the enhancements. “Paid for by me,” he replied.But that wasn’t true. Budget documents from the National Park Service that I obtained show that the walkway replacement cost taxpayers $689,232, and is part of a $1.3 million project that included repairing adjacent stone and masonry and providing new hardware for nearby doors. A year earlier, in a separate “Rush project at request of POTUS,” the Park Service spent $347,503 to remove and replace the stucco on the colonnade wall, a project that cleared the way for Trump to affix gold frames and plaques mocking some of his predecessors.This previously undisclosed spending is part of an enormous shift of taxpayer cash away from National Parks around the country and into the Washington area. In order to pay for the president’s projects, the parks have had to cancel needed repairs, slash their budgets, and operate with fewer employees. Taxpayer spending on projects in the National Capital Region has increased 92 percent over the past year, according to the budget documents. The windfall draws on revolving maintenance accounts and more than $100 million in fees collected almost entirely from National Parks elsewhere. Trump has ordered the refurbishment of fountains, the lining of the Reflecting Pool, and a $1.6 million Fourth of July fireworks display on the National Mall. He has requested billions more from lawmakers, who thus far have refused. “I’m so proud of Washington, D.C.,” Trump said Wednesday during a meeting in the Oval Office with