GOP Senators balk at $1B in security for White House ballroom

The Hill -   A proposal to provide $1 billion in federal funds to provide security for a new White House ballroom is in danger of being stripped from a budget reconciliation package after Republicans responded skeptically to the idea.  “I don’t have the details I need to support it. It was one thing when private dollars were building it. If you’re asking me for a billion dollars, I have some really hard questions,” Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said before a Tuesday meeting with Secret Service Director Sean Curran.

GOP senators had lunch with Curran in the Capitol’s Mansfield Room on Tuesday as he pitched them on the need to spend $1 billion — substantially more than the ballroom was initially projected to cost — on security enhancements to the ballroom and the White House grounds more generally.

GOP senators said they wanted more details to justify the project, which is now estimated to cost several times more than the $200 million renovation President Trump announced in July.