So tweeted private citizen Donald Trump in 2012, parroting a favorite theme of the far-right anti-Obama crowd. But Mr. Trump's vacations during his first two months as President have been so numerous and so expensive, he's not only showing himself to be hypocritical about the issue of Presidential vacations, he's also embarrassing those who tried to use the issue of vacation costs to knock Mr. Obama.

(Mar-a-Lago, site of Trump vacations - image from Thomson-Reuters)
Let's take a look at some of the numbers:

We'll start by referencing a December 30, 2016, online story from Fox News. In that article, Fox quotes numbers from Judicial Watch, an organization that promotes right-wing talking points, who claimed that the cost of Mr. Obama's family travels during the past eight years had come to almost $97 million. Referring to the Obama travel history as a "notorious abuse of presidential travel perks", Judicial Watch called on Mr. Trump to "immediately save taxpayers money by reforming Presidential travel".

Well, Mr. Trump has done anything but that. In an April 12th article, International Business Times reports that Mr. Trump has spent 7 of his first 13 weekends in office at his Mar-a-Lago Florida resort. They also report that each trip has cost taxpayers between $1 million and $3.6 million. At even the most conservative rate, and assuming the Judicial Watch numbers are correct, Mr. Trump will easily surpass the reported spending of the Obama vacations and do it in just one term. At the higher rate, he'll do it within a single year.

So when Mr. Trump claims, as he did in a Greta van Susteren interview in August of 2011, that "he {President Obama} takes more vacations than any human being I've ever seen", we wonder how he feels now about his own vacations.

We're also anxious to hear what Judicial Watch and others who have taken issue with Mr. Obama's travel have to say about the expenditures of Mr. Trump's travels. Will they be consistent and try to maintain some semblance of credibility by also condemning Mr. Trump? Or will they find ways to try and justify his extravagance? Unfortunately, you probably can guess how most of them will respond.

Update #1: You may also recall Mr. Trump's frequent criticisms of Mr. Obama for having played too much golf and that, at a campaign event in Virginia last August, Mr. Trump said, " I'm going to be working for you, I'm not going to have time to go play golf." Business Insider published some interesting numbers regarding that promise, though:

(image of Trump on golf course from Reuters)
Mr. Trump has spent 17 days of his presidency at a golf course, compared to Mr. Obama's zero by week 12. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had spent zero and three days golfing by week 12, respectively.

Update #2: The Palm Beach Sheriff's department reports that overtime costs when Mr. Trump is at Mar-a-Lago amount to $60,000 per day. If the city is unable to get the federal government or Mr. Trump to cover some of these costs, Mayor Paulette Burdick indicates the city will have to cut services or raise taxes.

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