The American Spectator

p> UNDERGROUND PORKING br> Much has been made of the Capitol Hill Visitors Center that is currently under construction behind the Capitol. The need for the underground complex was dubious at best, but when a lone gunman smuggled a gun into the facility several years ago, killing and wounding several brave Capitol Hill police officers, the window was opened to create a secure facility to screen visitors to the building. /p>

The problem is that a project like this wouldn’t result in a true Capitol Hill landmark unless it were loaded down with pork. So a center that should have cost no more than $10 million is now a $300 million monolith that will stand as a permanent witness to congressional excess. Even more amusing — as revealed at a recent hearing of the House Appropriations Committee’s legislative subcommittee — is the seeming shock at the bulging price tag on the part of the very people who allowed the construction in the first place. The hearing was held in part to address the anger of congressmen forced by the new construction to park their cars at more inconvenient spots on Capitol Hill grounds.

Others, like legislative subcommittee member Rep. Don Sherwood (R - Penn.), feigned ignorance about who had approved the building of a more than 500,000 square-foot underground facility. One Democratic House member asked his aide, “Why would we do that?” before being told it was what had been voted on by Congress.

“It just goes to show you how these guys think up here,” says another House aide, who works on the Appropriations Committee. “It’s their center, essentially their museum or monument, if you will, and they just threw money at it with no consideration for the taxpayer. Most of them will never set foot in the damn thing. It’s now, literally, a money pit.”