By Tyler Lilly – Staff Reporter

The East Wing of the White House was demolished on October 20. A new building called the White House State Ballroom will eventually be built in its place. The new ballroom is not being funded with taxpayer money, but is instead being funded by many private donors, including companies and individual people. A few of these donors include Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, and T-Mobile. It has not been stated how much the companies have donated, but they and many others contributed to funding the ballroom, which has yet to receive mandatory approval from the National Capital Planning Commission to begin construction. 

This planned White House State Ballroom addition is wrong for many reasons. It demolishes history, and encourages private companies and people to give the president money, essentially letting companies buy their way into the government, setting a dangerous precedent for the power of these companies.

To make room for the ballroom, the history of the East Wing was destroyed. There were two historically important magnolia trees in the East Wing; one for Warren G. Harding, and one for Franklin D. Roosevelt. The tree for former president Harding was planted in 1922 to commemorate him, and was replanted in 1947. The tree for former president Roosevelt was planted in 1942, and both trees were officially designated commemorative trees. Both of the trees were removed, and the White House staff have ignored any questions about the trees. President Trump had gone on record saying that the ballroom will “not interfere” with the current East Wing. The blatant disregard for history is concerning, and the trees should have been preserved somehow rather than destroyed.

The destruction of history is far from the most concerning part about the White House ballroom addition, because the project is being privately funded. While this might seem like a good thing because taxpayer money is not being spent, it is actually quite unsettling to think about. An entire list of donors has been released, and some of the biggest names are on there; Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, and more. An outlier on this list is YouTube, which is a subsidiary of Google, and the largest video-sharing platform on the internet. Donald Trump’s YouTube account was suspended in 2021 following the January 6th United States Capitol Attack, which, in part, was started by Trump’s false claims of election fraud in the 2020 Election. President Trump recently sued YouTube for his suspension, and they were forced to contribute $22 million to the White House State Ballroom project, as per the terms of the settlement. This is only one of many lawsuits that President Trump has filed in the past year. With so many companies being targeted, one could argue that donating to the Ballroom’s construction is a way for companies to buy the trust of the government, which could lead to these companies and the elite rich having a greater influence over politics than they should.

Some might say that the new ballroom plan has benefits. One of the biggest reasons for the addition is because the current East Wing is too small to host large events, and the large capacity of about one thousand people will make hosting White House events far easier. While these points are undeniably true, it is the equivalent of taking a moldy, stale, inedible cake, and putting frosting on it. Sure, it looks nice at first glance, but once the cake is cut open and the inside is revealed, nobody will want to be within 10 feet of it. The removal of historic parts of the White House, and allowing companies to buy into the Trump administration are not worth having a new State Ballroom and renovated East Wing. Letting companies get involved in government affairs is a dangerous path to go down, and could lead to a consolidation of power.

Unfortunately, the East Wing was already demolished, and the donors’ money already went into a private fund. There is not much that can be done to solve this, but there should be restrictions on private donations to fund government projects. The Ballroom itself is not the worst plan ever, but it is unnecessary and is being funded in a way that is vulnerable to corruption. Between the disregard to historical parts of the East Wing, private funding, and being an unnecessary overhaul of an area that already did its job, the White House State Ballroom is a bad idea.