President Donald Trump boasted earlier this year that the US would spend only $200,000 to $300,000 on a new US Embassy in Jerusalem, but it seems the project will cost nearly $20 million more than that estimate. [...]
The US spent just under $400,000 on modifications to the consular facility that allowed it to open as the US Embassy in May, but the State Department told CNN at the time that it planned "for construction of a new extension [...] as well as for additional security enhancements"
— CNN
Back in March, the 'Builder in Chief' promised that the highly controversial new United States Embassy in Jerusalem would have to be built "very quickly and very inexpensively" at a bargain price tag of around $250,000. According to documents made public this month, the State Department however recently awarded a $21.2 million contract to the firm Desbuild Limak D&K to design and build an extension and compound security upgrades to the former consular building in Jerusalem's Arnona neighborhood—nearly 100 times the original estimate.
13 Comments
A public project going wildly over-budget? I need to sit down from the shock.
For other like situations, see virtually every public project ever built. (And most private ones, too.)
But going 8000% over budget? Can't say I've ever seen that in my day job, public or private ...
True. That idiotic lowball figure was a rhetorical flourish, not an actual budget. But the putative gasping at big overruns is also rhetorical, I'd argue.
I'm not gasping at either the budget overrun OR the fact that the gasbag behind the Resolute Desk lied again. Both are a fact of life in 2018. That doesn't mean we should settle for either.
No argument. But is either somehow new in 2018?
My point was that concern about budget overruns is often selective. Folks tend to complain about the projects of which they disapprove, but stay silent when costs for projects they like soar to the sky.
I think the issue here is less that the project is "over budget" and more that the president is a lying moron.
That's one issue, of course.
Another issue is claiming to worry about budget when the real complaint is something else.
Sometimes I'm a little off on my cost estimates too. This is a tough business, Trump. Hang in there.
Sometimes I'm so off on my long term budget estimates that I need to go into Chapter 11 protection. Oh wait, no I don't, because I'm not A) An idiot or B) A scam artist taking risks with other people's money
it's not like donald trump has ever worked in property development or something like that.
.
+++ for Lucille.
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