Donald Trump\u2019s obsession with gold is spilling outside of the White House. The National Park Service has awarded a $5 million contract to a Maryland gilding studio to repair four bronze horse statues near the Lincoln Memorial in time for the celebration of America\u2019s 250th birthday. The contract was awarded without a full competition, according to (1)reports (1).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the latest in an increasingly expensive series of upgrades around the nation\u2019s capital. One study by the nonprofit, Washington, D.C.-based news outlet NOTUS found (1) the Interior Department has distributed at least $95 million for beautification projects around the district, $20 million of which (including the horse contract) have not been officially reported.<\/p>\n
Must Read Rising prices <\/p>\n
The job is a restoration project, rather than adding new gold. The horses, two pairs that are known as the Arts of War and Arts of Peace (2), have a gold-toned coating that was last updated in the 1970s. The contract also includes work beyond the gold leaf.<\/p>\n
Still, gold prices<\/a> are certainly impacting the price of the project. Since the start of the year, gold futures have (3)increased (3) roughly 5.5%. In the past year, they\u2019ve shot up more than 36%, thanks to rising geopolitical tensions and inflation concerns, and several<\/a> Wall Street banks believe<\/a> that rise will only continue in the coming years.<\/p>\n The horse statues will be overlaid with a thick layer of 23.75-karat gold leaf.<\/p>\n Read More: Taxes are going to change under Trump\u2019s \u2018big beautiful bill\u2019 \u2014 4 reasons you can\u2019t afford to waste time<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Questions about contracting <\/p>\n While governmental spending of this sort is not unexpected, given the upcoming semiquincentennial celebration, the lack of transparency has raised eyebrows.<\/p>\n \u201cBypassing competition laws for park restoration work is just naked cronyism,\u201d (4)wrote (4) one Redditor when learning about the contract. \u201cI\u2019m fine with cleaning\/repairing statues, but Trump makes everything into a fraud\/bribery scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n The Gilders\u2019 Studio, the company that was awarded the contract, is a well-known and respected firm. It recently refinished the exterior of the Wyoming state capitol with a thinner gold leaf than is being used on the statues. It is not, however, the only company qualified to do the work. Yet, the project was awarded without a full competition.<\/p>\n The park service reportedly cited the desire to have the work completed before July 4 as the reason the contract was awarded in that manner.<\/p>\n The notice for the work, NOTUS reports, was only posted for six days before it was filled \u2014 and the park service did not do extensive market research to determine if the $5 million price was fair, citing the urgent nature of the requirement.<\/p>\n Beyond the work being done on the horse statues, the National Park Service has many more beautification projects happening in the District of Columbia, including a (5)$3.6 million (5) contract to rehabilitate Logan Circle and spending (6)$5+ million (6) to repave the marble around the Sim\u00f3n Bolivar statue, which is near the National Mall.<\/p>\n Many of those projects have seen their costs increase since the contracts were awarded.<\/p>\n You May Also Like <\/p>\n Join 250,000+ readers and get Moneywise\u2019s best stories and exclusive interviews first \u2014 clear insights curated and delivered weekly. Subscribe now.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Article Sources <\/p>\n We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n Notus (1)<\/a>; National Park Service (2)<\/a>; Google (3)<\/a>; Reddit (4)<\/a>; USASpending.gov (5)<\/a>, (6)<\/a><\/p>\n This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com<\/a> under the title: Trump is quietly spending $5 million in taxpayer dollars to cover four bronze horse statues in 23.75-karat gold<\/a><\/p>\n This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump\u2019s obsession with gold is spilling outside of the White House. The National Park Service has awarded…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":832132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[32],"tags":[648,1032,341322,1033,69,171,79385,21764,341323,288639,11686,23934,9593,67,132,68,5223],"class_list":["post-832131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-beautification-projects","tag-design","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-gold-futures","tag-gold-prices","tag-horse-statues","tag-interior-department","tag-national-park-service","tag-notus","tag-robert-kiyosaki","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-white-house"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116663042981395182","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}