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Citing costs, Trump retreats from massive military parade in capital
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday officially surrendered his order for a massive military parade in the nation’s capital, as spiraling costs rendered his vision of a Veterans Day extravaganza too expensive to justify.
“Maybe we will do something next year in D.C. when the cost comes WAY DOWN,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Now we can buy some more jet fighters!”
Several administration officials described a sort of sticker shock after seeing a Pentagon estimate that soared as high as $92 million to pay for the troops, fighter jets, armored vehicles and other military hardware that would be mustered to satisfy the president’s dream of displaying American might.
By Friday morning, Trump essentially accused the capital city’s government of price gouging. Local officials, he said on Twitter, “know a windfall when they see it.”
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Responding in a tweet of her own, Washington’s mayor, Muriel E. Bowser, said she was “the local politician who finally got thru to the reality star in the White House” so that he would understand the “realities” of the expense of the kind of parade he wanted. She estimated it at $21.6 million in city spending alone.
A cost breakdown provided by the city to The New York Times showed that 18 local agencies would share the cost of the $21.6 million price tag, including more than $13 million for the Metropolitan Police Department for security measures.
The City of Washington is typically reimbursed for such expenses by the federal government. The Defense Department had been expected to spend an additional $50 million, officials said.
Most of the balance of the costs would cover security provided by other government agencies. Estimates earlier this year put the parade price tag at between $10 million and $30 million.
Trump has been enamored with the idea of military convoys marching through Washington since his presidency’s infancy. The committee planning his inaugural ceremony reportedly explored, but rejected, using military equipment in the traditional parade from the Capitol to the White House after Trump was sworn in.
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The last time a similar parade was held in Washington was in 1991, celebrating the end of the Persian Gulf War. It cost about $12 million, or about $22 million in today’s dollars.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Eileen Sullivan, Helene Cooper and Michael D. Shear © 2018 The New York Times
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