Trump will be the most expensive president ever.

Already, managing both vehicular and foot traffic in and around Trump Tower on 5th Avenue is said to be costing New York City about $1 million a day.   That's in addition to the Secret Service costs to US taxpayers, and all the Air Force One trips between Washington and NY for Trump to visit his family.   The Secret Service is considering renting a floor in the Tower to use as a command center, since Melania and Barron will not be moving to Washington at least until after this school year is over.

Of course, any president and his family have to be guarded wherever they go.   Often it involves building guard houses, blocking off streets, and renting space for agents to stay near the homes the president maintains.

It's just that they usually are not so numerous and in such high rent/high traffic areas as this posh shopping section of New York's 5th Avenue.   Think the Bush remote ranch out from Crawford, TX or the Carter home in small town Plains, GA.   Instead of live stock and peanuts, this involves the same block of Manhattan real estate as the Gucci and Tiffany stores, which are being affected as their customers have to go through and around barricades to get into their upscale shopping meccas.     And it's not just on the street.   Trump Tower is a 58 story, mixed use skyscraper with thousands of tenants who work or live in the building.    All their ins and outs must be security screened -- rather than just setting up a roadblock at the end of a rural road or a quiet residential street in Chicago.

But here's the thing.   Donald Trump may be the first president to make money on all these perks.   If Secret Service rents a whole floor of Trump Tower, that will bring in about $1.5 million a year to the Trump coffers.    Ditto all the fund raising events that have been catered at Mar-a-Lago and the Trump golf courses, plus the cost of campaign use of the Trump plane flying all over the country every day and back to New York each night.    And now all the diplomats and lobbyists that are lining up for reservations at the newly renovated Trump hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, hoping thereby to current favor with the president-elect.

That's what he's good at -- making money off other people, in this case, much of it from the taxpayers

Ralph