On Spending: Melania vs. Moochelle

Photo: Reuters

There is no question that the Trump administration is different than all other presidential administrations preceding it. One thing Trump promised during his campaign run was to cut the crazy spending. It looks like he's taking the vow seriously.

The First Lady, Melania Trump, has become more active and public of late and in spite of that, she is running one of the leanest East Wing spending operations "in the entire history of the United States," Donald Trump would say if he was commenting on it.

According to Fox News, Melania has significantly cut spending and reduced the number of aides to the first lady from 16, Michelle Obama's number, to just four. Where Michelle's aides cost the taxpayers $1.24 million a year in salaries, Melania's cost $486,700.

And according to Melania's spokeswoman, the cuts in staff is intentional.

Evidently, Melania doesn't have to put on a show of royalty like others tend to do.

"As with all things that she does, she is being very deliberate in her hiring, focusing on quality over quantity," Stephanie Grisham, communications director said. "It is important to her that the team is a good fit for what she wants to accomplish as first lady, and that everyone works well together. She also wants to be mindful and responsible when it comes to taxpayer money."

Overall, the first lady has 9 people working for her and Michelle had 24, which has probably broken records as to who is the most ostentatious First Lady who spends other people's money, and it doesn't even include the separate flights she and Barack took for vacations and her entourage throwing rose petals at her big feet on the tarmac when she landed.

Photo: Reuters

Hillary Clinton had 19 staffers and Laura Bush had 18--so they weren't too far behind, according to FactCheck.org.

Melania Trump's staffers include a chief of staff, a communications director, a deputy chief of staff and a deputy director of advance.

Michelle Obama's staffers included those identical positions and a boat load of others: additional press aides, a director of policy and projects, a personal aide, a traveling aide and a director of correspondence.

Michelle's larger staff was probably due to her having a more aggressive agenda and embracing such initiatives like: "Don't Stand for the Damn Flag," "Let's Move Our Butts, Women," and "Look, Fat Kids."

After President Trump entered the White House, Melania and their son, Barron, stayed in New York City where he finished up the school year and had to take insults from alleged adults on the left.

Lately, however, Melania has become more publicly active and even hosted a roundtable discussion on the opioid crisis. She also traveled with the president to tour the destruction of hurricanes and had to endure insults from alleged adults on the left for not wearing appropriate hurricane viewing shoes as she stepped off Air Force One. 

Additionally, she went with President Trump to meet with the victims of the Las Vegas massacre, in which alleged adults on the left tried to blame President Trump for the act of one crazed individual for the killing of 58 individuals.

Andrew Och, a first lady historian, describes Melania more like Bess Truman and Pat Nixon, and thankfully nothing like Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama, both of whom have their evil eyes on the presidency.

The Trump administration has trimmed staff positions in other staff positions. Under Trump there are 110 fewer employees than Obama and the projected savings, according to June Forbes, could be over $22 million.

Put that in your hash pipe and smoke it, Barry.


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