An open letter to Pennsylvania Senators Fetterman and McCormick;
I am a constituent of yours and I'd like your comment on something I found in the news.
Here it is. From PBS:
After last week's bipartisan vote in Congress to end the longest shutdown in U.S. history and fund the Department of Homeland Security, Republicans are moving ahead with an approximately $70 billion, party-line plan to fund Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for the rest of President Trump's time in the White House.
And:
Nearly all of the money, more than $60 billion, is devoted to immigration enforcement efforts – further insulating CBP and ICE from political pressure and congressional oversight after last year's influx of $75 billion from President Trump's signature domestic policy agenda, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The bill also contains one billion dollars for the Secret Service, part of the DHS, for security infrastructure related to President Trump's White House ballroom project. According to the bill text, the funds may not be used for any non-security elements of the project, which the administration says is being funded through private donations.
So the GOP wants a cool billion from the American tax payer to help fund the security upgrades they now deem necessary for the new ballroom President Trump decided the country needed.
Got it.
The US Energy Information Administration recently posted that the average price of a gallon of gas was $4.45 - up $1.30 from last year and up $.33 cents from only one week ago.
Take a look:
The USDA Economic Research Service posted this recently:
The all-items Consumer Price Index (CPI), a measure of economy-wide inflation, increased 1.0 percent from February 2026 to March 2026. It was up 3.3 percent from March 2025.
The CPI for all food increased 0.1 percent from February 2026 to March 2026. Food prices in March 2026 were 2.7 percent higher than in March 2025.
The cost of gas is up from last year. The cost of food is up from last year. Cost of lots of things are going up since last year. Lots of people are feeling the pinch - as I am sure you'd agree.
But let's shift to a different part of this story. In July, 2025 CBS reported:
In July, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the 90,000-square-foot annex would be paid for by private donors and the president himself. Mr. Trump committed to disclosing donors' names and said he wasn't looking for contributions from foreign sources.
"I'm paying for it. I'm paying for it," Mr. Trump said Tuesday, predicting that the ballroom could cost $250 million.
As I am sure you know, there have been many many other times when Mr Trump said similar things.
Like this time as reported by NBC News:
“These are all private individuals that put up a lot of money to build the ballroom,” [Trump] added. "Not one penny is being used from the federal government."
He said "not one penny."
And while the text of the bill states that:
None of the funds made available under this section may be used for non-security elements of the East Wing Modernization Project.
I have to wonder why any upgrades would be needed in the first place? I am guessing the Secret Service was already involved in the design of the ballroom and made sure the place would be secure for presidential use. How could it not be?
In any event, I am asking you as a constituent, if you will be supporting this legislation (or indeed any legislation) looking to collect any amount of public money for any element in the construction of Donald Trump's White House Ballroom.
If yes, please explain to the tax payers why you'll be supporting that legislation when the president has already said that not one penny from the federal government would be used.
