Tom Tancredo: “Mr. Chairman, in the proud tradition of the $500 hammer, the $1,000 toilet seat and the $1 million outhouse, the FDA and…”

“Mr. Chairman, in the proud tradition of the $500 hammer, the $1,000 toilet seat and the $1 million outhouse, the FDA and this bill now bring us a hugely expensive Federal office building in Los Angeles. This building, 133,000 square feet, will cost us, when it is done both in construction and in land acquisition and design, some $53 million. That is an extraordinarily expensive piece of property, and as you can see by this picture here, it looks nothing like what one would consider to be an appropriate design building for a Federal Government agency. By the way, this amount, this $52 million, $53 million for this 133,000 square foot building does not include the cost of furniture, telecommunications, or security systems. It is just the building and the land. Yes, there are some laboratories in the building, but that does not account for the massive expense. It is the incredible opulence of this building, the building itself, a rendering of which, by the way, the architect proudly displays on his Web site, and proud he should be. Look at this thing. Does this look like a building designed with the slightest consideration for cost containment? Of course not. But why should anyone care. After all, it is just government money. Let us take this $20 million that they are asking this year and use it for debt reduction and not for pork production.”