The Biden administration is replacing over 30 gold-clad steel toilets in all the bathrooms of the White House with water saving high-efficiency ceramic types. The new toilets will only cost about $500 each, so why the $3.5 million pricetag?

As it turns out, the previous president (uh, that would be Trump, remember?) was obsessed with the lack of sufficient water pressure to flush away his big ginormous dukeys. This was because of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 signed by then president George H.W. Bush which said that new toilets could use no more than 1.6 gallons of water per flush.

Being the take-charge, forward-thinking, take-matters-into-his-own-hands kind of guy, Mr. Trump signed an executive order mandating that water pressure in the White House be increased to 1600 PSI or the equivalent of a moderately powered water pressure washer for all water lines supplying all of the bathrooms. Of course, this required installation of a high volume water well pump not to mention replacing all of the water lines with suitiably rated steel cased, high pressure supply lines.

Unfortunately, the new water supply caused several of the existing ceramic toilets to burst under the pressure, which meant they needed to be replaced with commercial grade stainless steel models. Mr. Trump was quoted as saying “Let’s replace these with gold clad stainless steel – they look much nicer” [than the ceramic ones]. White House staffers at the time also suggested that Mr. Trump may have had other reasons for replacing the toilets. When Mr. Trump requested that all bathroom showers and sinks also be hooked up to the high pressure water supplies, he was advised against it because of the very real danger of high-pressure water injection injuries.

The upshot is, that these rennovations cost taxpayers nearly $30 million.