Waste and vanity spending: documented costs of White House projects, renamings, travel and agency cuts (2025-2026) Synthesis A running hub for spending the site's author considers wasteful, with each item's cost taken from the best available source and its funding (taxpayer, private donor, or unknown) stated. Costs range from about $2 million for the Rose Garden patio (privately funded) to an estimated $600 million for the ballroom (more than half public money per the Washington Post). Several items have no official total yet; where the figure is a CBO or press estimate, the entry says so. East Wing demolition and ballroom Trump demolished the entire historic East Wing in 2025, with little warning and without consulting Congress, to build a roughly 90,000-square-foot ballroom. He first put the cost at $200 million (July 2025) and later repeatedly at $400 million, calling it "tax-payer free." On June 16, 2026 the Washington Post, citing a cost estimate prepared by contractor Clark Construction, reported the project would cost as much as $600 million with more than half coming from taxpayers. A summary prepared for the White House that March already put the total at $600 million, with only $293 million from "private sources." The estimate includes $3.6 million of Secret Service money for site preparation before the East Wing was demolished, according to administration emails cited by USA Today. The White House says Trump and "generous American patriots" are funding the ballroom with about $400 million, and that the project is needed for large, secure events. Rose Garden paved over Trump replaced the Rose Garden lawn with a stone patio modeled on the Mar-a-Lago patio, with tables and yellow-and-white striped umbrellas. AP reported the project cost about $2 million and was paid for with private donations to the Trust for the National Mall, so this item is a loss of a historic garden rather than a documented taxpayer cost. Gold: Oval Office and regilded statues The Interior Department awarded The Gilders' Studio a $5.1 million contract in April 2026 to regild four bronze equestrian statues (Arts of War and Arts of Peace) near the Lincoln Memorial in 23.75-karat gold leaf, ahead of the July 4 anniversary. NOTUS reported the award was no-bid, and The New York Times obtained documents showing the National Park Service had estimated about $2.4 million for the work in late March, roughly half the awarded amount, as relayed by Hyperallergic. Trump has added extensive gold ornament to the Oval Office. The White House told Fox News Digital he paid for it personally but gave no amount, so no taxpayer cost is documented for the Oval Office gold itself. Kennedy Center renovation and closure On Feb. 2, 2026 Trump said the Kennedy Center would close for about two years from July 4 and that the work would cost about $200 million, including "the highest-grade marble, the highest-grade everything." He said the building would not be torn down. Congress has budgeted about $250 million for the project. Board members put a full two-year closure at about $280 million and a four-year partial closure at about $560 million, and documents obtained by Axios describe plans for new furniture, marble flooring, an upgraded concert hall, VIP restrooms and a coffee shop alongside infrastructure repairs. Department of Defense renamed "Department of War" CBO estimated that implementing Executive Order 14347 (Sept. 5, 2025), which authorized "Department of War" as a secondary title, would cost from a few million dollars up to $125 million depending on how broadly and quickly DoD applied it; about $10 million for a modest rollout inside the Office of the Secretary. CBO said a statutory renaming could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, that its estimate is uncertain because DoD did not provide information on its plans, and that the costs would be opportunity costs paid from existing budgets. Qatari jet converted into Air Force One The Pentagon accepted a Boeing 747 donated by the Qatari royal family in May 2025. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink testified the conversion would cost "less than $400 million," disputing outside estimates above $1 billion, and the Air Force is using money previously given to the Sentinel ICBM program. The Air Force says the work is classified. AP reported in June 2026 that L3Harris completed the modification and flight testing, that the exterior was redone but the luxury interior built for the Qatari royal family was left unchanged, and that the jet is a "bridge" while Boeing's separate $3.9 billion Air Force One program runs years late (first jet now expected in mid-2028). Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cuts A February 2026 report from Sen. Elizabeth Warren's office, with consumer advocates, estimated that the Trump administration's changes at the CFPB have cost Americans at least $19 billion in lost financial relief in one year: about $5 billion a year from an overdraft-fee limit that Congress overturned, about $10 billion from a credit-card late-fee cap the bureau did not defend, and about $4 billion from lawsuits and settlements dropped under acting director Russell Vought. It is an advocacy estimate, not an official accounting. The same report found that under the Biden-era bureau about half of consumer complaints ended with relief for the consumer, versus under 5% under the Trump-era bureau. The Federal Reserve inspector general expanded a review of the CFPB's workforce reductions to cover its canceled contracts, after Sens. Warren and Andy Kim asked it and GAO to examine Vought's moves. In Dec. 2025 letters, Vought told appropriators the bureau would need $279.6 million in fiscal 2026 just for legally required activities, and $677.5 million to comply with the court injunction, while requesting no funding. For scale: the Economic Policy Institute says the CFPB has returned more than $21 billion to consumers since its creation, and the bureau's Jan. 9, 2026 request to the Federal Reserve for $145 million was made to comply with a court order and keep it open through March 2026. The $21 billion is what the bureau recovered for consumers in the past, not a cost of the cuts. Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Trump first said the Reflecting Pool renovation (repainting it "American flag blue" and fixing leaking joints) would cost $1.8 million. In May 2026 he said it would be "less than $20 million" because exterior work was not in his original numbers. The New York Times, citing federal records, reported the anticipated cost had risen to $13.1 million. Trump attacked the report, said earlier efforts wasted at least $55 million, and said he could build a new pool for $5 or $6 million. A nonprofit sued to stop the work, arguing Interior skipped the required consultation and public-notice process. Golf trips Independent trackers estimate the taxpayer cost of Trump's golf-related travel and security in the second term at nearly $115 million, including about $80.2 million for 59 days at Mar-a-Lago and West Palm Beach, $13.6 million for 34 days at Bedminster, $10 million for a five-day Scotland trip and $7 million for 47 days at his Washington-area course. This is an estimate, not an official accounting. The per-trip estimates rely on a GAO report on early first-term Mar-a-Lago trips, which put each at about $3.4 million, mostly for Air Force One, Coast Guard patrols and C-17 flights carrying the motorcade. DHS/ICE purchases: shock gloves ICE planned to spend up to $20 million on "conductive distraction and de-escalation devices" (G.L.O.V.E. gloves that deliver electric shocks, made by Compliant Technologies of Lexington, Kentucky), according to a DHS notice. DHS gave no immediate comment to AP. Context: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (July 2025) gave ICE a $75 billion supplement, including $45 billion for detention, spendable over about four years on top of a base budget of roughly $10 billion. NPR reported ICE had $85 billion at its disposal. These are ICE figures, not total DHS spending. Perspectives Editorial read — The Author (site author), thesis The Author's thesis: gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is waste by the government, because it harms U.S. citizens and gives up the kind of recovery the bureau was built for. The Author points to the estimate from Sen. Warren's office and consumer advocates that the changes have cost Americans at least $19 billion in lost relief in a year, and to the more than $21 billion the bureau has returned to consumers since 2010, and treats the true cost as in the billions while acknowledging the actual amount can only be estimated. The record documents the contract cancellations, the funding fight, the dropped cases and the inspector general review. The $19 billion is an advocacy estimate built on the bureau's own projections of what the dropped rules and cases would have saved, and the administration disputes the premise (see its perspective), arguing the bureau itself raised costs and that shutting it down is the aim. Official position — White House Council of Economic Advisers In a February 2026 report the White House Council of Economic Advisers estimated that the CFPB itself cost consumers between $237 billion and $369 billion from its start in 2011 through 2024, and argues this far exceeds the roughly $21 billion the bureau reports returning to consumers. Most of the total is the Council's estimate of higher borrowing costs attributed to CFPB rules: $116-$183 billion on mortgages, $32-$51 billion on auto loans and $74-$116 billion on credit cards. The rest is about $1.5-$5.7 billion in lost economic efficiency from fewer loans and over $13 billion in fiscal cost to the government (Federal Reserve transfers to the bureau plus an assumed tax-burden adjustment). A further $21 billion in business paperwork costs is reported separately and excluded from the total. How the figure is built: the Council found that jumbo mortgages just above the 43% debt-to-income line in the 2013 Ability-to-Repay/Qualified Mortgage rule carried rates about 16 basis points (4.3%) higher than similar loans just below it, using 2018-2020 mortgage data. It treats that gap as the price of CFPB liability risk and applies it to mortgage originations from 2011 through 2024. For auto loans and credit cards, which the report says have no comparable natural experiment, it scales the mortgage gap by each product's complaints per dollar of lending. The report states auto loans have 98% of the mortgage complaint rate and credit cards 5.4 times, but its calculation uses 0.7 and 5.1 without explaining the difference. The report calls its figures lower bounds. Read this as a costs-only figure. It does not put a dollar value on the benefits of the rules; it sets its costs against the bureau's reported $21 billion in restitution, and it counts the drop in loans above the threshold as a loss without asking whether those loans were affordable for borrowers. CFPB defenders point to benefits it leaves out, such as an 87% drop in foreclosure filings after the post-crisis mortgage rules and a 2016 CFPB study estimating the Credit CARD Act saved consumers $16 billion in fees, and they dispute that the bureau expanded its jurisdiction. It is the administration's estimate of what the bureau's regulation cost, not of what the cuts cost, and it does not address the $19 billion estimate above. Research notes Open leads: (1) The roughly $85 billion figure is NPR's total for ICE funding (a $75 billion supplement on a base budget of about $10 billion), not all of DHS; a DHS-wide total, if wanted, needs its own source. (2) CFPB: the $19 billion figure is from the Warren report as relayed by AP; fetch the Senate report itself (Banking Committee Democrats) for the primary source and method, and the GAO and Fed inspector general findings when published. The $237-$369 billion figure is the White House CEA claim about the cost of CFPB rules, the opposite direction, and is shown as the administration's perspective. (3) Final cost of the Qatari jet conversion (Air Force secretary testified "less than $400 million"; actual spend is classified). (4) Kennedy Center: reconcile the $200M (Trump), $257M (appropriated), $280M (board, two-year closure) figures. (5) Golf: replace tracker/HuffPost estimates with a GAO-style cost accounting if one is published. (6) DHS aircraft is covered in its own entry (linked). Note The White House says the ballroom is funded with about $400 million from Trump and private donors, that the Oval Office gold was paid for personally by Trump, and that the Rose Garden and some other projects were privately funded; whether an item counts as "waste" is the author's judgment, not a finding in the sources. Sources [1] AP, "Trump's Rose Garden Club is a lavish new hangout" (syndicated copy) (https://www.theintermountain.com/uncategorized/2025/09/trumps-rose-garden-club-is-a-lavish-new-hangout) · 2025-09 [2] AFP (via Fox 26 Medford), "Trump ballroom cost soars to $600 mn, half from taxpayers: report" (https://www.fox26medford.com/news/national/trump-ballroom-cost-soars-to-600-mn-half-from-taxpayers-report/article_8fa6a7f5-acd7-5b0a-9db8-b37518794bbb.html) · 2026-06-16 [3] Rep. Katherine Clark's office, reposting USA Today, "Trump ballroom soars to $600M, with taxpayers on hook for half" (https://katherineclark.house.gov/2026/06/16/usa-today-trump-ballroom-soars-to-600m-with-taxpayers-on-hook-for-half-report/) · 2026-06-16 [4] The Daily Beast / NOTUS reporting on gilding the Arts of War and Arts of Peace statues; Hyperallergic; KSN (The Hill syndication) (https://www.ksn.com/news/trump-administration-spending-5m-to-restore-gold-plate-lincoln-memorial-statues/amp/) · 2026-04 [5] Fox News, "Trump gives Oval Office gilded makeover, covers cost himself" (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-gives-oval-office-gilded-makeover-covers-cost-himself) · 2025-08 [6] Associated Press via Rapid City Post, "Trump says he won't tear down the Kennedy Center" (https://rapidcitypost.com/trump-says-he-wont-tear-down-the-kennedy-center-arts-venue-but-it-needs-to-be-closed-for-repairs/) · 2026-02-02 [7] FOX 5 DC, "Kennedy Center board to weigh renovation closures" (https://www.fox5dc.com/news/kennedy-center-board-weigh-renovation-closures) [8] Congressional Budget Office, cost estimate for the "Department of War" name change (https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61942) · 2026-01 [9] Breaking Defense, "Qatari 747 to fly as Trump's Air Force One this summer" (https://breakingdefense.com/2026/01/qatari-747-to-fly-as-trumps-air-force-one-this-summer/) · 2026-01 [10] Defense One, "Air Force using Sentinel money to retrofit Qatar jet" (https://www.defenseone.com/defense-systems/2025/06/air-force-using-sentinel-money-retrofit-qatar-jet/406416/) · 2025-06 [11] Associated Press via Anchorage Daily News, "White House says goodbye to an Air Force One as it prepares for Qatar jet" (https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2026/06/18/white-house-says-goodbye-to-an-air-force-one-as-it-prepares-for-qatar-jet/) · 2026-06-18 [12] CNBC via NBC Los Angeles, "Fed's inspector general is reviewing Trump administration's moves to dismantle CFPB" (https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/business/money-report/feds-inspector-general-is-reviewing-trump-administrations-moves-to-dismantle-cfpb/3722381/) · 2025 [13] Consumer Finance Monitor (Ballard Spahr), "CFPB tells President, Congress it will need $279.6 million..." (https://www.consumerfinancemonitor.com/2025/12/05/cfpb-tells-president-congress-it-will-need-279-6-million-to-continue-statutorily-required-operations-through-september-30-2026/) · 2025-12-05 [14] CNN via KRDO, "Trump ups Reflecting Pool renovation projections to 'less than $20 million' amid court fight" (https://krdo.com/?p=1727441) · 2026-05 [15] TNND via WJLA, "Trump blasts New York Times over report on increased Reflecting Pool repair costs" (https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/trump-blasts-new-york-times-over-report-on-increased-reflecting-pool-repair-costs-lincoln-memorial-truth-social-lawsuit-obama-biden-renovation) · 2026-05 [16] Newsweek, "Trump golf trips top $100M..." (https://www.newsweek.com/trump-golf-trips-top-100m-obama-compared-12279201) · 2026-08 [17] TNND via KATV, "ICE plans to buy shock-delivering gloves for officers in $20 million DHS plan" (https://katv.com/news/nation-world/ice-plans-to-buy-shock-delivering-gloves-for-officers-in-20-million-dhs-plan-immigration-electric-shocks-painful-generated-low-output-voltage-emitter-glove) · 2026 [18] NPR, "How ICE grew to be the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency" (https://www.npr.org/2026/01/21/nx-s1-5674887/ice-budget-funding-congress-trump) · 2026-01-21 [19] Economic Policy Institute, "Trump administration attempts to close the CFPB" (https://www.epi.org/policywatch/trump-administration-closes-the-cfpb/) [20] Associated Press via WTOP, "Trump administration's changes to the CFPB cost Americans $19B, a new report says" (https://wtop.com/business-finance/2026/02/trump-administrations-changes-to-the-cfpb-cost-americans-19b-a-new-report-says/) · 2026-02-09 [21] White House Council of Economic Advisers, "Estimating the Cost of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to Consumers" (https://www.whitehouse.gov/research/2026/02/estimating-the-cost-of-the-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-to-consumers) · 2026-02 [22] Consumer Finance Monitor (Ballard Spahr), "Trump Administration Says CFPB Has Cost Consumers Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars" (https://www.consumerfinancemonitor.com/2026/02/20/trump-administration-says-cfpb-has-cost-consumers-hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars/) · 2026-02-20 [23] National Mortgage News, "White House report says CFPB raised borrowing costs" (https://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/news/white-house-report-says-cfpb-raised-borrowing-costs) · 2026-02 Connections Related — CFPB under Vought: medical-debt protections rolled back, and who runs it now Vought's effort to shut down or defund the CFPB, summarized here for cost, is covered there. Related — DHS's $464 million no-bid aircraft purchase from donor-linked Daedalus Aviation, including five planes bought hours before Noem left (2025-2026) The DHS aircraft purchase is a waste item covered in its own entry rather than repeated here. Related — ICE detention funding surge and private contractor revenue (2025-2026) GAO's finding of wasted ICE detention-expansion spending is the main DHS waste record; the shock-glove purchase sits on top of that funding. Related — Kennedy Center takeover, renaming, and closure/demolition threat The Kennedy Center renovation and closure cost estimates here belong to the takeover covered in that entry. Related — White House East Wing demolition and ballroom private financing The ballroom's cost and funding are summarized here; that entry covers the demolition and private financing in detail.