Donald Trump: Website Cost Me $3
on Wednesday, March 22, 2017Donald Trump Money Quote referencing the healthcare.gov website saying he could have gotten a better deal because his websites cost him less than anyone, possibly ever in the history of websites. Donald Trump said:
“And remember the $5 billion website? $5 billion we spent on a website, and to this day it doesn’t work. A $5 billion dollar website? I have so many websites. I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a website. It costs me $3 dollars” — Donald Trump
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In this quote, Donald Trump is criticizing the federal government’s spending on Healthcare.gov, the website created to help administer the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Some key points in interpreting his perspective:
- He disputes the reported $5 billion cost as excessive and wasteful compared to his own experience building websites for much less.
- However, the $5 billion figure refers to total ACA implementation costs over multiple years, not just the website.
- Government IT projects typically have more rigorous security, accessibility and scalability requirements than smaller private sites.
- His tone suggests skepticism of large government programs, while overlooking complexities of nationwide healthcare exchange implementation.
Overall, Trump aims to portray the website as an example of inefficient spending. But a balanced interpretation would also consider the counterperspective that developing national public services faces unique technical and administrative challenges compared to smaller private sector projects. Reasonable people can disagree on this issue.