The Corner

Trumped

Donald Trump is buying the Old Post Office from the federal government and will turn it into a luxury hotel, reports the Washington Post. The building is one of the most recognizable in D.C., shaping the city’s skyline. It’s also a money pit for taxpayers that “loses more than $6 million annually.” Its chief tenants are the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Instead of moving them elsewhere, how about taking them off the rolls as well? What a perfect opportunity.

It’s nice to think that private enterprise will take over a prestigious address on Pennsylvania Ave. The only problem is that the hotel will be a creature of government. A large percentage of the people who come to Washington “on business” are in fact there to seek subsidies or tax loopholes or whatnot. This will be Trump’s clientele.

John J. Miller, the national correspondent for National Review and host of its Great Books podcast, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.
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