Opinion | Trump is corruptly turning the White House into his billion dollar dream home

The price tag keeps ratcheting higher on one of President Donald Trump's favorite perks of being president. Since returning to office last year, he has spent a major chunk of his time focused on renovating, remodeling and relandscaping the Executive Mansion and the broader White House grounds. The Washington Post now reports that the potential price tag is likely to exceed $900 million - with the lion's share of that coming from taxpayer funding.

That's a much higher number than the Trump administration has previously claimed and far exceeds the meager amounts Congress has historically set aside for White House maintenance. It's also a figure that seems likely to grow as the president continues tacking on new projects and nitpicking over the details of those already underway. Through shady donations from wealthy funders and corporations, questionable accounting practices and an entirely misplaced sense of focus, Trump is well on his way to converting the people's house into his own billion-dollar dream home.

The planned ballroom being built over the demolished East Wing is the most visible and expensive item on the list of "modernization projects," as the White House is calling the renovation efforts. Also underway are a helipad on the White House South Lawn, a pair of updated fountains across the street at Lafayette Park, a new visitor screening center and a subterranean bunker.

All told, the Post identified $875 million in funds for Trump's projects that were cobbled together from several sources into a relatively obscure "White House Repair and Restoration" account that typically only holds a few million dollars each year.

Among the many scoops Post reporters have produced include a cost estimate from the contractor working on the ballroom totaling $600 million. That more than exceeds the $200 million original estimate for the work and the $400 million the administration has said private donors have provided. Confusingly, that price tag it still less than the $305 million in private money that has reportedly been placed into the "Repair and Restoration" account. Exactly who has donated to the ballroom project and in what amount remains a closely held secret.

Importantly, there has been little that could be described as urgent or vital about these big-ticket renovations. Trump's changes are largely cosmetic when compared to the last major overhauls of the White House. The Truman administration was forced to essentially abandon the Executive Mansion for years as the structure was found to be in danger of collapsing. The yearslong gut renovation required only around $80 million in today's dollars to accomplish. The Obama White House spent around $375 million over four years to provide crucial updates to the electrical system and other structural repairs.

What we see, then, is a White House that feels comfortable pirating funds that Congress has otherwise appropriated to pay for unnecessary vanity projects. Without further pushback from lawmakers and the courts, there's little limit to how much more could be siphoned off to satisfy Trump's obsession. These rushed and unauthorized works have already vastly outstripped their initial estimates, and given this administration's love of no-bid contracts, they are being done without a modicum of care for anything but speed.

It's a mismanagement of funds at best, outright corruption at worst and ought to prompt legislators to place stricter limits on how and when public funds are rerouted.