川普總統把第一季度工資捐給國家公園管理局

U.S. President Donald Trump has followed up on one of his campaign promises and donated his salary for the first quarter of the year to the National Park Service.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Monday presented Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke with a check for $78,333,32, during a press briefing at the White House.

A billionaire businessman turned president, Trump had promised to forgo his presidential salary. By law he must be paid, so he is donating the money. U.S. taxpayers can write off such donations, potentially lowering their income taxes.

The gift may be a peace offering of sorts. Trump has tangled with the parks agency over its tweets, which unfavorably compared the size of his inauguration crowd with that of Barack Obama's.

The National Park Service is part of the Department of the Interior, whose budget Trump has proposed cutting by more than $1 billion.

The charitable action did not appease the critics of Trump's environmental policies. The Sierra Club environmental group called it a "stunt."

"If Donald Trump is actually interested in helping our parks, he should stop trying to slash their budgets to historically low levels," it said.

But Zinke said he's "thrilled'' at the president's decision to give money to an Interior agency. He said he will use the money to help pay for long-deferred maintenance projects on the nation's 25 battlefields. Outstanding maintenance projects on those sites amount to about $229 million.美國總統川普兌現了競選諾言之一，把他今年第一季度的工資捐給了國家公園管理局。

白宮發言人斯派塞星期一在白宮例行記者會上向內政部長津克遞交了一張數額爲78,333.32美元的支票。

由億萬富商當選爲總統的川普曾許下諾言說，他不拿總統工資。按照法律，他必須領取薪水，所以他如今把錢捐了出去。美國納稅人可以用這類捐贈抵稅，有可能減少個人所得稅。

這筆捐款也許是一種講和禮。國家公園管理局的推特曾引起川普不滿。那些推特照片把參加川普總統就職典禮的人羣跟當年參加奧巴馬總統就職典禮的人羣進行了對照，讓川普的觀禮人數相形見絀。

國家公園管理局由內政部領導。按照川普的預算方案，內政部經費將被砍掉10億多美元。

這筆慈善捐款並沒有讓川普環境政策的批評者開心。環保組織塞拉俱樂部稱這是“做戲”。

塞拉俱樂部說：“如果唐納德·川普真的有意幫助我們的公園，他應該試圖停止把它們的經費大砍到歷史最低水平。”

不過，內政部長津克說，總統的捐款決定讓他感到“興奮”。他說，他會用這筆錢來幫助支付國家公園25處戰場遺址長期推遲的維修工作。在這些遺址，那些尚未解決的維修項目的費用大約總計2億2千9百萬美元。