Capitol Visitor Center Opens Archives
Capitol Visitor Center Opens
The Capitol Visitor Center opened today, December 2, 2008.
The U.S. Capitol Visitor Center formally opens to tourists Tuesday, over budget and behind schedule.
At 580,000 square feet, it’s the largest project in the Capitol’s 215-year history. It was originally scheduled to open almost four years ago, and the $621 million price tag is double the initial estimate.What a perfect introduction to Congress and its activities! I hope they have a display in the entryway about the construction of the Visitor Center. And maybe they could have interactive graphs and figures showing cost overruns in the Visitor Center, weapons systems, Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs. A sign of the times in the Bush-Obama New New Deal era.
The Washington Post offers more details on the progress toward the Visitor Center:
. . .
Take, for example, spending. 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.
"A Perfect Introduction to Congress," quoting an AP story on NPR and a story from The Washington Post, Cato@Liberty, December 2, 2008
December 2, 2008 01:57 PM Visiting Washington, DC
