The Waldorf’s Presidential Suite Isn’t Very Presidential Anymore
Months after the Waldorf Astoria was sold to a Chinese company, the State Department is abandoning a decades-long tradition of putting up U.S. diplomats at the storied hotel on New York’s Park Avenue.
This fall President Obama and state department officials will not be staying at the Waldorf for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly and will check into the New York Palace Hotel instead.
According to the New York Post, “every U.S. president since Herbert Hoover” has stayed in the presidential suite at the Waldorf when visiting New York, including President Obama. Presidential artifacts in the suite include President Jimmy Carter’s eagle desk set, one of President John F. Kennedy’s rocking chairs, a gold oval mirror from Ronald Reagan, and the personal desk of General Douglas MacArthur. The hotel is the site of Chinese history as well. On his first historic trip to the U.S. in 1974, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping stayed at the Waldorf and attended a banquet given in his honor by then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
Related: U.S. Reviews Waldorf Astoria Sale to Chinese Firm
The $1.95 billion sale of the 47-story tower to the Beijing-based Anbang Insurance Group first raised eyebrows in Washington last October. Even though the previous owner, Hilton Worldwide Holdings, will continue to manage the hotel for the next 100 years, news of a “major renovation” sparked fears of possible Chinese cyber-espionage and surveillance.
Those fears were further heightened earlier this month when U.S. officials blamed Chinese hackers for a massive cyberattack targeting the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, exposing sensitive information about 4 million current and former federal workers. China has denied any involvement.
Deficit Hits $738.6 Billion in First 8 Months of Fiscal Year
The U.S. budget deficit grew to $738.6 billion in the first eight months of the current fiscal year – an increase of $206 billion, or 38.8%, over the deficit recorded during the same period a year earlier. Bloomberg’s Sarah McGregor notes that the big increase occurred despite a jump in tariff revenues, which have nearly doubled to $44.9 billion so far this fiscal year. But that increase, which contributed to an overall increase in revenues of 2.3%, was not enough to make up for the reduced revenues from the Republican tax cuts and a 9.3% increase in government spending.
Tweet of the Day: Revenues or Spending?
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee and one of the authors of the 2017 Republican tax overhaul, told The Washington Post’s Heather Long Tuesday that the budget deficit is driven by excess spending, not a shortfall in revenues in the wake of the tax cuts. The Wall Street Journal’s Kate Davidson provided some inconvenient facts for Brady’s claim in a tweet, pointing out that government revenues as a share of GDP have fallen significantly since 2015, while spending has remained more or less constant.
Chart of the Day: The Decline in IRS Audits
Reviewing the recent annual report on tax statistics from the IRS, Robert Weinberger of the Tax Policy Center says it “tells a story of shrinking staff, fewer audits, and less customer service.” The agency had 22% fewer personnel in 2018 than it did in 2010, and its enforcement budget has fallen by nearly $1 billion, Weinberger writes. One obvious effect of the budget cuts has been a sharp reduction in the number of audits the agency has performed annually, which you can see in the chart below.
Number of the Day: $102 Million
President Trump’s golf playing has cost taxpayers $102 million in extra travel and security expenses, according to an analysis by the left-leaning HuffPost news site.
“The $102 million total to date spent on Trump’s presidential golfing represents 255 times the annual presidential salary he volunteered not to take. It is more than three times the cost of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that Trump continually complains about. It would fund for six years the Special Olympics program that Trump’s proposed budget had originally cut to save money,” HuffPost’s S.V. Date writes.
Date says the White House did not respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment.
Americans See Tax-Paying as a Duty
The IRS may not be conducting audits like it used to, but according to the agency’s Data Book for 2018, most Americans still believe it’s not acceptable to cheat on your taxes. About 67% of respondents to an IRS opinion survey “completely agree” that it’s a civic duty to pay “a fair share of taxes,” and another 26% “mostly agree,” bringing the total in agreement to over 90%. Accounting Today says that attitude has been pretty consistent over the last decade.
