The news that the Secret Service's budget for the year has already been exhausted covering the protection of the Trump family, a large group who travel a lot, raises some issues.
The first question is not an issue. The president's family must be protected, particularly out in the open in a heavily armed country and dangerous world. Television footage of people with open-carry firearms at the demonstration in Charlottesville, Va., is just one recent example. America has more than its quota of troubled people with guns.
At the same time, the overall picture becomes muddled when figures in the government who might just want Secret Service protection for the prestige--the black vehicles and the communications gear in the ears of the people surrounding them--get protection. A second tangled situation is when members of the president's family get expensive protection when they are traveling on profitable, personal, or family business.
Some observers have criticized Mr. Trump for his multiple residences--his penthouse in New York City, his golf club in New Jersey, his resort in Florida--in addition to Camp David and the White House, for what his peripatetic lifestyle costs the taxpayer, but there is little new about that. Every president in recent years has moved around.
We have lost four presidents to crazies--Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy. That is a real "never again."
At the same time, cost-conscious Americans might ask some questions. One of these is whether there is any thought that the federal government might be reimbursed for Secret Service protection when some beneficiary is traveling on personal or company business. Second, might some Secret Service protection provided to non-presidential figures or family be provided only when a threat has been identified?
In the short run, the money to pay for continued Secret Service protection to those who need it will simply have to be found.
Editorial on 08/27/2017