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Apple Donating to Trump's $350M White House Ballroom Project

Heres what i think....I dont mind the idea of this...but i hate the way they are going about doing this. The white house is over 200 years old. The wings on the white house are what...a century or so old? Ok, its a historic building and its last major renovation was nearly 100 years ago when they gutted the place. Sure, things have been mantained and updated since then, improvements, revisions, etc, how could they not be in a building that old... so in principial i dont have an issue with this...

ITS HOW ITS BEING DONE by whos doing it. I loath Trump with a passion, not because he's not my political party (i dont have a political party) but because hes a lying narcisist conman who thinks himself as a king and has the mentality of a 12 year old.

If Biden or Obama or even Bush or Clinton did this, it be a huge uproar. Here, its just the latest "Oh what the hell did he do now" moment.

He's doing it without any oversite or permission from what i understand, and the design of the ballroom is bigger then the actual main white house itself, and will make the entire complex look totally disproportionate and is nothing but a vanity project to him. I'm honestly shocked he's not going to have a bright neon or gold TRUMP sign on the front of the building, but hey plans changed.

The main problem is....ITS NOT HIS HOUSE. He doesnt own the property, we the people do. This also tells me he has no intention of leaving....EVER! You simply dont invest this kind of money into a project (of his own and "Donors" (Shake down butt kissers) your going to be leaving in 4 years.

Apple, donating to this, looks bad, but if it keeps them exempt from the tarriffs and all that, then they got to bend the knee for the benefit of their costumers. I highly doubt Tim Cook personally likes trump or is eager to give him a single penny, but if he wants apple to continue to be the company it is and not have to raise prices on everything it makes, he has to bend the knee to trump for now, pure and simple, and if that means donating to this ego trip of a project, then so be it. I cant fault him for doing it even if i disagree with it.

Say apple took a stand against trump and refused to kiss butt a bit and spoke out against trump and all his con man policies... you would see price increases and numerous investigations of them out of the blue. In fact i will bet you trump would personally try to bankrupt them if he could because they refused to bend the knee. He's that type of jerk.

So if apple wants to play ball and continue to make money, then they have to bend the knee. Besides what they are donating to this building is likely a weeks work of profits it makes. They arent going broke anytime soon.

So that all said, i dont have a major issue with Tim Cook doing this, or the idea of "Improving" the white house, i have a problem with whos doing it and why and that problems name is Donald J Trump!
 
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It's not my country, so I don't really have a say in the matter. You're probably right that there needs to be a ballroom. But does it have to be so gigantic that the entire executive residence could fit inside? Something smaller and more modest would be much better; 50,000 square feet would have been more than enough.

I admire the White House; it's one of the most famous buildings in the world, it looks aesthetically pleasing and has class. The two wings were deliberately built flat so as not to detract from the prominence of the Executive Residence. For this reason, the addition of another floor to the West Wing was rejected.
 
Dark_Omen said:
Paid for by the working class. Why do you have a right to healthcare if you’re fully capable of working and purposefully choose to not work? And to get better coverage than the working class? That’s disgraceful.
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Congress folks get top tier healthcare coverage. Who pays for theirs?
 
TroyBoy30 said:
the east wing wasnt torn down. just the facaude, which is fancy name for car port, was torn down.
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Nope. The whole thing was torn down.

TroyBoy30 said:
i dont remember all of you being upset when oboma built a friggin basketball court. your selective outrage is tiring.
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Again, Obama added basketball hoops and new lines to an outdoor tennis court. You really think that's the same as tearing down the East Wing and replacing it with a 90,000 sq ft palace ballroom after repeatedly lying to the public about the scope of the project?
 
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tyranne201 said:
why apple needs to donate to a White House construction?

put the money in climate change, reforestation....like what? doesn't make sense.
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Essentially just a requirement to keep the de-facto quid pro quo going.

Apple needs the government help on tariff relief as well as assistance dealing with the increasingly long list of other countries that take issue with their App Store distribution and revenue lockdown.

This won't be the last disgusting act.
Mob bosses don't go away after one (or a few) bribes.
 
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Spock said:
I am honesty surprised that the White House doesn’t already have a space like this.
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I mean the 'ballroom' is replacing the 'public audience room' which was used previously for things like concerts and balls... So it was actually originally a ballroom in the first place, albeit a smaller one.
 
Dark_Omen said:
It blows my mind that people actually think the U.S Government can actually do something efficiently.
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That is by design, not a natural fact that government is inefficient. It is by design that the very wealthy and corporations are not taxed as high as they should be and that much of the taxes by percentage is coming from the less resourced. In effect, the wealthy people and major corporations are LIVING OFF the backs of poorer and less resourced peoples.

Also, ACA is not just for poor individuals. They are for many employers and employees of smaller companies.
 
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I haven't seen people talk about it, really, but the White House has a maintenance budget of between $10 and $20 million a year as it is now. This new building has almost double the footprint of the entire existing structure.
Even if he were paying for it with his own money (which of course he isn't, because it's 1) not his and 2) the whole "the Justice Department owes me $230 million" didn't come from nowhere), or with corporate bribes, taxpayers are still going to be footing the bill to maintain it.

Considering the size of the thing, the security costs, and the costs to staff it, it's reasonable to assume that this new building will cost taxpayers at the very least an amount comparable to the current White House budget to maintain. That means taxpayers are going to have paid as much for this building as these "investors" by the time twenty years pass. If it stands as long as the East Wing did, ignoring inevitable inflationary costs and assuming a conservative estimate of ~75% of the current budget annually, it'll cost taxpayers close to $1.25 billion over its lifetime. It's not unreasonable to estimate a total cost around twice that amount.
The bottom line is that, even if Trump pays for the construction with private money, the annual cost of maintenance for Trump's ballroom is likely going to be roughly around half what a state the size of Montana is losing in SNAP benefits annually as a result of the Republican reconciliation bill this year.
 
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Kar98 said:
I haven't seen people talk about it, really, but the White House has a maintenance budget of between $10 and $20 million a year as it is now. This new building has almost double the footprint of the entire existing structure.
Even if he were paying for it with his own money (which of course he isn't, because it's 1) not his and 2) the whole "the Justice Department owes me $230 million" didn't come from nowhere), or with corporate bribes, taxpayers are still going to be footing the bill to maintain it.

Considering the size of the thing, the security costs, and the costs to staff it, it's reasonable to assume that this new building will cost taxpayers at the very least an amount comparable to the current White House budget to maintain. That means taxpayers are going to have paid as much for this building as these "investors" by the time twenty years pass. If it stands as long as the East Wing did, ignoring inevitable inflationary costs and assuming a conservative estimate of ~75% of the current budget annually, it'll cost taxpayers close to $1.25 billion over its lifetime. It's not unreasonable to estimate a total cost around twice that amount.
The bottom line is that, even if Trump pays for the construction with private money, the annual cost of maintenance for Trump's ballroom is likely going to be roughly around half what a state the size of Montana is losing in SNAP benefits annually as a result of the Republican reconciliation bill this year.
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All for something that will be empty most of the time.
 
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Giving away money (donations) is not good business, as a business needs to generate profit. Therefore, there must be some profit over and above the amount that is donated.
 
ProbablyDylan said:
Remember this when Apple talks about environmentalism or saving lives. They're bankrolling a ballroom for the guy that hates renewable energy and foreigners.

Could be investing this in their products and services. Could be spending this on furthering their climate goals. Nah. Gotta suck up to the King of Clean Coal and Diet Coke.
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It's strange though that 2 of his wives are foreigners.
 
Heres a valid question.....What happens to the west wing now? You mean to tell me the white house is going to look so lopsided with one major complex on its right side, its original house dwarfed by comparison and this outcropping (for lack of a better word) on the left side thats small compared to the ballroom.

The whole structure is about balance. Yes, the wings WERE NOT SYMMETRICAL as in the same structures reversed. I also always found it weird once i found out the oval office was a relatively recent addition (world war 2 i believe) and off to the side of the main house. As a kid i always thought it was in the center original house....

But this new design totally throws that off completely. You have this massive building on the right side, the original house, and then the west wing.

i say if you are going to upgrade the white house might as well demolish the west wing as well and build a matching structure (obviously not another ballroom).

I mean, the damage is allready done. The east wing is destroyed right now and thats by design. Do you really think congress or who ever has to "approve" the new structure (its going up one way or another) is going to say no and just have half the white house sit in ruin? Common, thats never going to happen.

the sad part is, trump isnt even that good of a builder....have you seen his buildings...tacky as all hell. All of them are like him, the illusion of wealth and power but really very shallow surface level opulence.

The white house, historically was never meant to be grand, lavish or opulence. It was always supposed to be balanced out. A nice home, sure, but still a reasonably moddist one. Not a palace! Not some grand display of wealth.

This ballroom runs counter to the grand design of the white house itself. Its more about 'Hey we're rich, lets throw a party" instead of "Lets govern responsability

but then again look who wanted it and is paying for it.

its a damn shame!
 
TroyBoy30 said:
the east wing wasnt torn down. just the facaude, which is fancy name for car port, was torn down.

i dont remember all of you being upset when oboma built a friggin basketball court. your selective outrage is tiring.
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A whole basketball court :eek:

How much do you think the basketball court cost versus a ballroom?
 
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chmania said:
Giving away money (donations) is not good business, as a business needs to generate profit. Therefore, there must be some profit over and above the amount that is donated.
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The apparent willingness with which companies are appearing to bend the knee makes me think they're not buckling under ever so mild pressure at all, they are paying for exactly what they wanted to have in first place.
 
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iPay said:
Everything. Despite his cognitive state, the Greatest President has some ethics : when being bribed, he feels compelled to honor the bribe. To borrow from poker lingo, the $1m ticket for his Great Dinner was the ante: without this, you can't even reach him. For serious business you have to bribe again, like ABC did with his $15m settlement, same as Paramount $16m and many others. Now $350m by Apple is a bold raise that will certainly trickle down to the trump organisation.
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Not that it’s much better, but the total cost of the ballroom is $350M, it’s not clear how much Apple donated.
 
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Kar98 said:
The apparent willingness with which companies are appearing to bend the knee makes me think they're not buckling under ever so mild pressure at all, they are paying for exactly what they wanted to have in first place.
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Gavin Newsom is sending all the CEOs knee pads with Trump’s signature 😂
 
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