TW: I am sure you will all be glad to learn the US Capitol visitor's center has been completed finally. The grand opening is today. It only took six years and a mere $621 million to finish this extravagance. To me the project symbolizes the bi-partisan clusterfuggery that runs our government- massive delays (it was originally meant to open three years ago) and massive cost-overruns- again over $600 MILLION!
From WaPo:
"What began six years ago as a huge, muddy cavity next to the U.S. Capitol and has since consumed thousands of tons of concrete, 400,000 carefully selected hunks of stone, and a million and one other bits of metal, marble and history, at a cost of $621 million...
The basic belief that tourists needed safe, secure shelter from the elements as they waited to be guided through the Capitol grew, as with so many simple notions left in the hands of Congress, into something far grander: a subterranean edifice so magnificent that it alone is worth a visit...
What was proposed as a $71 million project in the early 1990s became a $265 million endeavor a decade later. By the time work got underway in 2002, the price tag was up to $368 million. Tomorrow, the ribbon will be cut on a $621 million project.
Then there was the congressional penchant for thinking big. The center's architects were ordered to include 150,000 square feet of "shell space" for some future day when Congress might need more office area. The finished center is about two-thirds the size of the entire Capitol..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113002569.html?hpid=artslot
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