I read The New York Times every morning - in a hardcopy edition tossed onto my lawn sometime between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m.. Quite often, I am struck by some little turn of phrase in one or another story, and that was the case with respect to a story published on April 28, 2026, documenting how the "Ballroom Builder" Got A "No-Bid Deal" for a nearby job. Click the link, and you can read that article, too - but you will be reading it in the online version, which does come with a headline slightly different from the headline from which I have just quoted.
As I presume that anyone reading this blog posting knows, our current president has destroyed the East Wing of the White House (without any prior approval or authorization by anyone, including the Congress), and is attempting to build a huge new "Ballroom." The initial good news for America was that this would, allegedly at least, not cost the taxpayers anything. Munificent "donors" (not expecting anything in return, we are supposed to believe) were supposed to have made free-will donations to take care of the costs of the current president's "Ballroom" demolition and rebuilding project.
The Times' article I have linked above notes that the same contractor who is undertaking the "Ballroom" project is now, in addition, refurbishing the fountains in Lafayette Square, just a block or so from the White House. In the photo at the top of this blog posting, you can see Lafayette Square in the foreground, with the White House in the background. The main point of The Times' article is that the contract to refurbish the two fountains located in Lafayette Square was awarded to the "Ballroom" contractor by our current president without being put out to bid, as it should have been:
In January, government documents show, the Trump administration secretly gave the company a no-bid contract to do another job at a sharply inflated price.
The National Park Service wanted to repair two ornamental fountains in Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. The Biden administration in 2022 had estimated the work would cost $3.3 million. But Mr. Trump’s government agreed to pay Clark $11.9 million to do it, and later added tasks that increased the contract to $17.4 million, the documents show (emphasis added).
Funding for the fountain rehab project is NOT going to be provided by those "Ballroom" donors. The Times informs us in the article that the inflated costs involved will be funded by "the government."
I just want to highlight how that "the government" phrase fails, at least so I believe, fully to convey what has happened. As I believe we all understand, when we talk about "the government," we are really talking about you, and me, and everyone living in these United States. "Donors" and "the government" sound pretty much the same, unless you think about it. Whoever they are, "donors" and "the government" seem to be someone other than you and me.
But that's not true. Instead of describing how the "inflated" costs of the fountain project will be paid for by "the government," a better description would have said something like this:
The highly-inflated costs of the work on the fountains, which was assigned to a contractor admired by our current president without any competitive bidding having taken place, will be paid for by every person residing in the United States. The current cost estimate is $17.4 million dollars, up from an estimate by the Bidden Administration, four years ago, that the work should cost $3.3 million.
My point? It's the same point I make so frequently in my postings to "We Live In A Political World." WE are "the government." When "the government" takes action (starting a war or awarding a contract) that means that the project is being done in OUR name, and it almost certainly guarantees that we will each be personally affected, in one way or another.
Because we are, all of us, affected by what "the government" does, and because we truly do want a system of "self-government," our elected representatives are supposed to be making the decisions that will affect our pocketbooks, or perhaps cost us our lives.
While the president is, of course, one of our "elected representatives," the job to which he has been elected in the job of "executing" the decisions made by our elected representatives in Congress - hundreds of them, who come from all over the United States and who because of this, are thought to be more directly in touch with the people (all of us) whom they represent.
If we don't keep remembering this, and if we don't take action to be sure that our governmental system operates the way it is supposed to, we are, essentially, standing by and watching the demolition of our system of self-government (in much the same way we have been compelled to observe the demolition of a significant part of the White House by a person who doesn't want to play by the rules that the Constitution has established).
Image Credit:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/25/us/politics/lafayette-park-fountains-trump-contract.html
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