Photos: NPR
Okay, I’m going to try and play this one right down the middle, and you tell me how it sounds. President Donald Trump is donating his the first three months of his presidential salary to the National Parks Service.
Handing over a check of $78,333 to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Trump made good on his pledge to forgo a salary during his time in office. Zinke said the money would go to preservation of national battlefields.
This of course comes after Trump’s proposed budget cuts, which slash 1.5 billion, or 12 percent, from the Department of the Interior’s budget, seriously hampering an already hamstrung agency. Zinke says the department is currently staring up hill, way up hill, fiscally. “We’re about $229 million behind in deferred maintenance on our battlefields alone,” he said.
And that’s before we even get to park maintenance across the country. All this comes of course after Trump has proposed thoroughly gutting the EPA. So what do you think? Noble gesture, or smokescreen?
