Military people might call these married quarters or PMQs. But government owned housing comes in many ways, and for different reasons. The Governor-General and the Prime Minister live in government housing. Military people live in them. There is government housing on almost all military bases. It is common in almost every military in the world. In some countries, government houses come in the form of palaces or castles. But it is all government housing.
If you were assigned to one of these places, like married
quarters (it is unlikely that any of my readers would live in palaces or
castles), you would not think of making unilateral changes to the structure by
yourself. You wouldn’t think of tearing down a wall or wing of the house or
doing any significant modification without some type of official authorization.
The US White House is government housing. It is meant to house the President of the
United States and provide a workspace for his/her immediate staff. So, what
gives the current president the idea that he can tear down an entire wing at
the east end of the building? Why does
he think he has the right to build a garish “ballroom” on this site? Such
permission is supposed to be approved by congress with the recommendation of a
heritage counsel. Although the heritage body has condemned the plan (it was
never asked about tearing down the old structure), the congress has never been asked
to vote on it. And what started off as
vanity project to be paid for by donors has now to be funded by taxpayers’
money to the tune of one billion dollars.
Can you imagine getting away with that in married quarters? But
Donald Trump does not believe in rules and laws. If that applied to us, wouldn’t
be wonderful/horrible world!
“When
a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.”
- John Ruskin
“No
man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them
deliberately.”
- Michel de Montaigne
