Jul 12, 2018

How’s this for inflation?

President Donald Trump has repeatedly boasted that he would save US taxpayers a bundle by negotiating a $250,000 price tag for a new embassy in Jerusalem. Turns out the final cost, just for a temporary facility, is almost 100 times more.

Documents uploaded this week to the official database of federal spending show that Maryland-based joint venture Desbuild Limak D&K has been awarded a $21.2 million award to design and build “addition and compound security upgrades” to the embassy in Jerusalem’s Arnona neighborhood. That’s in addition to the $335,000 spent to get the facility, formerly a US consulate, ready for its ritzy grand opening as an embassy back in May.

“We’re going to have it built very quickly and inexpensively,” Trump told reporters at a March press event with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following his December decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocate the US Embassy from Tel Aviv. “They put an order in front of my desk last week for $1 billion. … We’re actually doing it for about $250,000, so check that out.”

The president added, “Now it’s temporary, but it’ll be very nice,” apparently conflating the potential bill for a final embassy with his estimate of how much it would cost to upgrade the consulate into an embassy. Even then the $250,000 was way off, as the $21.5 million also refers to upgrades to the temporary site in Arnona.