Cost of Capitol Visitor Center Set to Jump Once More « The Washington Independent
Jul 31, 202023.4K Shares586.1K Views
When the Capitol Visitor Center opened to the publicin December, the $621 million pricetag raised plenty of eyebrows, not least because the cost represented a jump of nearly $360 million above original estimates.
And it’s only going up.
The Senate on Monday passed a bill to engrave “In God We Trust” and the Pledge of Allegiance — including “one nation under god” — at prominent spots in the 580,000 square foot visitor center. Speaking on the chamber floor just before the proposal passed unanimously, sponsor Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said the changes are needed because the current design “conspicuously ignores America’s unique religious heritage and the role that heritage played in the founding of the Republic.”
“„Indeed, the original exhibits that are there now seem to suggest the federal government was the solution to all our problems in the fulfillment of all human aspirations — as if we were a government with a nation, instead of the other way around.
DeMint is normally one of the loudest fiscal hawks in Washington. But in this case, he says, the $150,000 cost is worth the trouble to correct “the historical whitewash of the original design,” to “welcome god” back into the center, and to highlight the “all important relationship between faith and freedom in America.”
Paula M. Graham
Reviewer
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