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Keller @ Large: Trumps Need To Help Secret Service Fix Budget Mess

BOSTON (CBS) – The USA Today story documenting how the Secret Service has run out of money to pay its agents didn't really come as a surprise. The agency has been struggling with budget problems for years, and the extreme financial demands of protecting the Trumps have made a bad situation even worse.

So, what are we going to do about it?

It's a given that we have to protect the commander-in-chief and his immediate family from the violent world we live in. No one of good will wants to see any of them harmed, and it is in the public interest to make sure they are not subject to violence or kidnapping.

But given how bad the agency's budget problems have become, we have to come up with some creative answers. And the Trump family themselves ought to be part of the solution.

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President Donald Trump surrounded by Uniformed Division Secret Service officers at the White House. (Photo credit SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Perhaps the president could consider fewer trips to his homes in Florida and New Jersey. Securing those sites is very expensive, as are the security precautions at Trump Tower in New York. He has the White House and Camp David, which are less costly to guard. He should use them more.

And his grown sons Donald junior and Eric have some nerve making the taxpayers pick up the tab for a Secret Service detail accompanying them on their private business trips abroad. They are both millionaires who can afford to cover at least some of the cost themselves, and they should do so.

Ronald Reagan Jr. refused to accept Secret Service protection when his father was in his second term and Richard Nixon dropped his post-presidential coverage in 1985 to save the taxpayers money. Time for the Trump family to step up as well.

Share your thoughts via email at keller@wbztv.com, or reach out on Twitter, @kelleratlarge.

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