Not only does President Joe Biden spend an inordinate amount of time at his vacation home in Delaware, but he also spends an inordinate amount of money there — your money, in fact.
The Secret Service said it has spent $490,324 of taxpayer money for the “purchase and installation of security fencing” in Delaware’s Rehoboth Beach, according to an online database for reviewing federal records.
The Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service’s parent agency, originally granted $455,000 for the fence, according to a Fox News review from last year. Plus, the department chose Dec. 21, 2021, as the target date for the end of construction.
Predictably, Homeland Security’s contractors have ballooned the costs and dragged the schedule. The project is now more than $35,000 over budget… and still growing.
The construction is also running more than a year behind schedule. The contractors now expect to complete the fence not in December 2021, but in June 2023.
By that point, Biden would have only 18 months left in his presidential term.
Still, the president looks unlikely to stress over the construction’s lengthening schedule. He has time.
After all, Biden has spent more than a third of his presidency on vacation, The Horn News reported Thursday.
Biden last visited Delaware on Aug. 7, according to Fox News Digital. He reportedly plans to return to Delaware on Saturday after spending much of the month on South Carolina’s Kiawah Island.
Like his predecessors, Biden travels with a large entourage of aides, Secret Service agents, and journalists in an unmistakable motorcade of more than a dozen dark vehicles. When on vacation, presidents ostensibly still receive briefings on national security, the economy, and other issues like attending to matters of state and mapping future plans.
As a matter of procedure, the Secret Service is refusing to speak publicly about this project. “Due to the need to maintain operational security, the U.S. Secret Service does not comment on the means, methods or resources used to conduct our protective operations,” the agency told Fox News Digital on Thursday.
Biden keeps two Delaware homes: one on Rehoboth Beach and one in the city of Wilmington.
The Secret Service has previously expressed concerns about the beach house, according to the Associated Press.
For one thing, the beach house is nestled among other homes and not as easy to fortify as his more remote Wilmington abode. And secondly, a presidential visit requires a huge security footprint that could close roads and snarl traffic in a bustling beach town that does most of its yearly business on summer weekends.
Read more: Joe Biden’s outrageous calendar
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.