Anybody who has walked by the east side of the Capitol in the last few years knows that there’s a big construction project going on. It’s for an underground visitors center. Here’s the shocking news: It’s costing far more than originally planned and taking years longer than expected to complete, according to the Washington Post:

It probably will wind up costing about $600 million, government auditors believe — more than double the initial $265 million budget projection from 1999 and just shy of the cost of Washington’s new $611 million baseball stadium. Post-Sept. 11, 2001, security worries, as well as changes in design and content, have driven up the cost.
It will also be famous, at least at first, for the chronic delays that pushed its debut from 2005 to 2006 to 2007 to 2008, as the added work and hundreds of changes slowed the pace and clogged construction.
“A monument to government inefficiency, ineptitude and excessiveness,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), a longtime critic.
“I’ve never seen a bigger boondoggle in my life,” said Wasserman-Schultz, who chaired a House subcommittee hearing on the center last month. “It’s like they’re playing with Monopoly money.”

Who is playing with Monopoly money? If Congress cannot properly oversee a project that’s taking place in its own backyard–literally!–then how can it oversee anything?