More money was spent on federal building renovations by the Biden Administration ($2.5 billion) than the Taj Mahal’s $850 million construction cost.
The Federal Reserve is struggling to hold expenses for government properties as it fights to control inflation.
The central bank is in the middle of long-running project that is about to overhaul three adjacent office buildings overlooking the National Mall into a state-of-the-art campus.
Documents on the budget from the end of last year showed that the cost of the overall projects inflated due to “significant increases” in the cost of steel, cement, wood, and other materials that “far exceed standard cost escalations.”
Taj Mahal was over $3,600 (Rs 300,000) was funded by the waqf where one-third of the amount came from 30 villages in the Agra district.
Two buildings are currently getting refurbishing and gutting in the overruns including the Fed’s headquarters. The building was finished in 1937 and named for then-Fed Chairman Marriner S. Eccles, and a neighboring building known as “FRB-East”. The Fed acquired that building that opened in 1933 from the Interior Department five years ago. Renovations are expected to finish by 2027 as it has started last year.
Interest rates are expected to be higher than ever from policymakers when Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell stressed the rise in the hikes, according to Fox Business.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers offer his guesses about interest rate hikes.
“My guess is that rates are going to reach a higher level than the market is now expecting,” Summers said on his assessment on the interest rate hikes. “That I’s going to certainly reach a much higher level than the Fed was expecting last December and that, once again, the data will record that the Fed underestimated inflation and underestimated how much policy was going to be necessary.”
Americans have experience pain in the pocketbooks with rise of cost of living, food, and energy that has affected millions across the country.
“It is welcome news to see some moderation in inflation readings since last summer, but the level of inflation matter, and it is still too high,” Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said of the rising costs.
The Fed’s senior brass has decamped for a third building overlooking the headquarters from the north: the William McChesney Martin Jr. Building. It opened in 1974 and was reopened at the end of 2021 after a top-to-bottom refurbishment that includes bathroom door sensors for touch-less opening and a pair of hives of Italian honeybees on the roof.
Fed official say their aim is to bring the majority of the board’s staff to offices that are closer together and reducing the central bank’s leased space in downtown Washington.
