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Donald Trump Takes A 17-Day Vacation Which Is More Time Off Than Most American Citizens Get In An Entire Year

By Hemal Vora
Published on: 02:06 PST, Aug 4, 2017

President Donald Trump has embarked on a 17-day long vacation at his private golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Ironically, Trump was a vocal critic of the then President Obama’s long vacations. President Trump is often criticized for his weekend trips to Mar-a-Lago, which puts undue pressure on public funds. Before his most recent vacation, President Trump had already enjoyed a leisure time of about 36 days counting the brief getaways, at the cost of over $20 million.

This 17-day vacation would be President Trump’s first extended vacation since taking office. Notably, Lindsay Walters, the White House Deputy Press Secretary told reporters that President Trump would continue to work and that this was a “working vacation.” It is also reported that one of the reasons for Trump’s vacation could be the replacing of HVAC systems in the West Wing of the White House. Other maintenance tasks that would be carried out include replacing carpeting and curtains, interior painting, and fixing water leaks in the press office ceiling.

Donald Trump had earlier asked the GOP senators to cancel their August recess until Obamacare was repealed. While that seems unlikely, reports suggest that GOP senators are eyeing an early end to the extended session and to start the recess a little sooner. Reports also reveal that counting the partial holidays, President Donald Trump’s vacation count stands at an unbelievable 53 days including the present 17-day outing, as reported by the Washington Post.

[Image by Julie Jacobson/AP Images]

The vacations taken by Trump are the topic of discussion precisely because as a private citizen he had time and again criticized Barack Obama for golfing and taking vacations. During his interview with CBS’ 60 seconds, President Donald Trump had said, “There’s just so much to be done, so I don’t think we’ll be very big on vacations.” During his campaigns too, he had stated that he would work for the people and there would be no time to play golf.

Time spent by Donald Trump on vacation is already thrice than that of Obama during the same period in his tenure. While Trump is taking vacations, the ordinary American citizen does not enjoy such a privilege. Reports reveal that an average American gets only 8-10 days of paid vacation during the entire year. This is mainly because no government regulations require the employer to provide any paid holidays.

[Image by Alex Brandon/AP Images]

Even the organizations that give holidays may not give them to all the staff. Depending on the profitability and job profile of the staff, the holidays can fluctuate. As discussed earlier, Donald Trump is not the first president to take vacations. However, the number of days he has spent in leisure activities is comparatively greater than previous presidents in recent history. Given that he claimed something else and is doing something else, the wide-spread criticism could be justified.

Do you think Trump has taken too many vacations on the taxpayer’s money? Let us know your view in the comments section below.

[Featured Image by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images]

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