Hello, is this the DOGE hotline? Where I can submit ideas to save big money for the government? It is? Oh, good.
I’ve been following with high levels of interest your efforts to reduce the government budget by any means necessary. So much waste there, I agree.
I’m not sure you’ll get much from taking over the Presidio here in San Francisco, but I have a suggestion that could save many billions of dollars for taxpayers — and no one would even miss it. I’m talking about the U.S. Congress.
Let’s start by estimating the real estate benefits.
Nine years ago, Zillow listed the White House with a “Zestimate” value of nearly $400 million. Nearly a decade later, Zillow’s listing has changed and it is now called an “apartment building,” but, as the page notes, “This building doesn’t have units on Zillow right now.” That sounds a little fishy; I suspect they’re doing some Airbnb-ing that’s not allowed by the HOA. But its current value is probably up to $500–$600 million, especially with all of the gold paint that’s been added.
That’s a lot of potential revenue, but because our entire federal government — and the Kennedy Center — is being run out of the White House these days, we need to keep it. What we don’t need is the U.S. Capitol.
The U.S. Capitol building is even bigger than the White House, so its value is probably much bigger. (Zillow is silent on the matter, because it’s not a residential property.) I’m sure there would be buyers. It would make a great site for a tech incubator or as a corporate retreat center. It might cost too much to convert it into condos, though that does seem to be the ultimate end for many iconic American buildings. I’m going to be bullish and guess that Compass or Sotheby’s could get us $1 billion for the U.S. Capitol building and grounds.
Our entire federal government — and the Kennedy Center — is run out of the White House these days, so we need to keep it. What we don’t need is the U.S. Capitol.
Next, we can calculate the savings from staff reductions by getting rid of Congress.
U.S. senators and members of the House of Representatives earn $174,000 a year (though a few of them get bumps if they take on side gigs, like speaker of the house). Throw in the other costs each member accrues and the Nieman Foundation at Harvard estimates it costs $275,000 per year for each member of Congress.
Oh, wait, my bad. Those numbers are from a 1962 article, and even then it noted that congressional costs had risen “six times as fast as the rest of the federal budget” over the previous decade. To bring it closer to modern times, Brookings reported that total spending just for the House of Representatives in 2015 was $1.05 billion, and that doesn’t include member salaries, which was another $75 million, or the whole Senate. In addition, the various committees spent millions more, with the House Appropriations Committee spending $20,933,871. The Ethics Committee was one of the lowest-spending committees. Make of that what you will.
In July 2023, the Appropriations Committee reported that the total legislative branch costs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, was planned to be more than $4.7 billion. So over 10 years, with increases over time, that’s more than $50 billion in savings we could have if we just shut down Congress and sold the building (a one-time revenue bump of, let’s say, $1 billion).
This is a huge opportunity to maximize revenue and savings for the government, and I honestly think members of Congress would be relieved. These days the Republicans all do whatever they’re told to do and then complain about it on background to reporters. The Democrats don’t do anything and everyone complains about them to reporters. So let’s just free all of them to return to the private sector and be done with this branch of government.
I know what you’re thinking — the U.S. Supreme Court is also a vestigial part of the U.S. government and therefore a candidate for layoffs and real estate cash-outs. But the court only costs about $100 million a year, so it is not among the low-hanging fruit to be picked by the budget-hunters. We’ll come back to them after the midterms.
I think this voicemail is about to run out of time, so I’ll end this here and look forward to your implementing my suggestion.
Thank you.
