DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—The House Oversight Committee’s subpanel on government efficiency held a hearing Tuesday exposing billions of taxpayer dollars wasted annually on outdated federal buildings.
Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who leads the Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency, opened the hearing by slamming federal agencies for maintaining a bloated real estate footprint. She pledged to continue pushing to “right-size” the federal government’s real estate portfolio.
“Here in D.C., [the Government Accountability Office] found in 2023 that the vast majority of federal agency headquarters buildings were less than 25% occupied—some much less,” Greene said. “Meanwhile, from 2022 to 2024, the backlog of deferred maintenance on the aging buildings the government owns grew from $216 billion to $370 billion. That’s more than one-third of a trillion dollars it will cost to restore them—if we don’t sell them.”
The Government Accountability Office has flagged federal property management as a “high-risk” area since 2003. Yet despite two decades of warnings, the Biden administration allowed billions to be spent not only to maintain vacant offices but also on lavish furniture purchases, according to the subcommittee’s review.
Greene highlighted early Trump administration moves, including canceling nearly 700 federal leases totaling 7.9 million square feet of space—moves she said saved taxpayers around $400 million. One such canceled lease was a 15-year, quarter-billion-dollar agreement for luxury office space on Pennsylvania Avenue, signed by the Biden administration to house Voice of America and the U.S. Agency for Global Media. The building, Greene said, had zero broadcasting capabilities, and taxpayers would have been on the hook for another $130 million in renovations.
John Hart, CEO of the watchdog group OpenTheBooks, framed the issue in visceral terms.
“Today’s expansive, excessive and sometimes opulent federal real estate portfolio is both a monument to the administrative state and a mausoleum of lost dreams, opportunity and freedom for American taxpayers,” Hart said in his opening statement. “Do federal employees need seven figures worth of abstract modern art to make the government run?”
Hart testified that agencies spent $4.6 billion on furniture since fiscal year 2021, including $284,000 on Federal Emergency Management Agency conference rooms and nearly $120,000 on leather recliners for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. Hart also cited the $238,000 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spent on solar-powered picnic tables which, by the agency’s own social distancing rules, “should have sat unoccupied,” he said.
David Marroni of the Government Accountability Office echoed the concern over dysfunction and inertia inside the federal property apparatus.
“The pandemic shined a spotlight on these long-standing problems,” Marroni told lawmakers. “The federal government has held on to too much space and has been too slow in shedding underused properties … Progress has been slow. Agencies were in a wait-and-see mode for too long.”
Marroni said that, for the first time, agencies are being forced to begin tracking actual building utilization data starting this summer.
Democrats on the panel said the Trump administration’s rapid disposal plan was ideologically driven and economically reckless.
“I think it’s very clear that part of the agenda here is really about dismantling the administrative state and using real assets of the federal government to do that,” Democrat New Mexico Rep. Melanie Stansbury, the ranking member of the subcommittee, said in the hearing. “The point here is that things are not always as they appear in Washington, D.C., and I think it’s very clear that this is not about the federal taxpayers and the American people. This is about disposing of federal property and a fire sale to make the wealthy more wealthy. Thanks.”
Republicans fired back. Texas Rep. Pat Fallon cited Government Accountability Office findings that 17 of the 24 largest federal agencies used less than 25% of their office capacity. Republican South Carolina Rep. William Timmons said the goal was to offload waste and inject new life into dead office space. They cited reforms under the Federal Property Management Act and the Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act of 2016 as a road map for future consolidation.
“I guarantee you that a developer—a big bad developer—is going to come in,” Timmons said. “They’ll build this massive building, put housing in it and pay taxes. That’s the highest and best use.”
Greene said the DOGE subcommittee intends to introduce legislation aimed at streamlining the disposal process for surplus federal property and imposing stricter accountability measures for future real estate acquisitions. She also said the subcommittee would work closely with the White House and the Government Accountability Office to accelerate selloffs and lease terminations.
Thomas English is a contributor to The Daily Signal.
Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal by Thomas English.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
As a gifted builder we the vast majority are darn lucky that our President Donald Trump has properly began the restoration of all of the long ignored infrastructure and grandeur of The United States of America.
No longer is our taxpayer’s trillions of hard earned incomes going to enrich Demrat communist cronies and flooding our great nation with terrorist and illegals looking only to kill and steal from our land!
Truly God has chosen to bless America once again as the evil empire of socialism is finally defeated for good!
Nancy and are so very proud its once again morning in AMERICA!
So we vote for leaders who go to DC and apparently simply end up robbing the people who sent them. We actually thought they were in DC to represent our interests. Since DOGE has been investigating what REALLY happens in DC I find myself totally overwhelmed with the extent of the corruption and fraud and waste these “representatives” have caused. I am surprised that our country did not go bankrupt a long time ago. Somehow, we need to keep DOGE as a watchdog forever to rein-in this mess. And we need to keep leaders like Trump and Musk there as well.
Interesting that the Democrats are steadfast in defending fraud, waste of taxpayers dollars and ignoring efficiency because it exposes their gaming the system for personal gain. The fact that they will not acknowledge that many government building are under utilized, have outlived there useful /productive lives and it’s time for redevelopment benefits who? You would think D.C. would want some new high tech residential and commercial development. It would provide younger people an opportunity and desire to live closer to their government and non-government jobs in some really cool spaces. I wonder if the Democrats even want to discuss ROI and ROA’s ? Those are topics near and dear to us average taxpayers who have businesses or own a rental property or just care about finance health. Time to get Congress and GAO to execute on their strategy of selling properties and exiting leases that are a financial drain on taxpayers.
Some of the office space could be utilized for housing congressional staffers.
We don’t need ANY Abstract Art in a Federal Building for it’s employees though I admit some Surreal Art might be appropriate! Get reproductions of Dali’s melting watch painting so the workers have a sense of not wasting time!
The Dems. always spend tax payer money like it’s their money and I can’t stand the lies that they tell the people of this Country all of them need to be removed from our Government ……….
Precisely why the demonic-rats are desperate to get rid of DOGE! Ah the lies they brew. Eeeeevil creatures!!
“ ‘I think it’s very clear that part of the agenda here is really about dismantling the administrative state and using real assets of the federal government to do that,’ Democrat New Mexico Rep. Melanie Stansbury, the ranking member of the subcommittee, said in the hearing.”
Yes. Glad that you understand.
Don’t believe BLM land is legitimate; that land belongs to the respective states.
And you are nothing close to reality in anything you mutter under any name you steal
The following is from the website of Congressman Scott Perry (R) Pennsylvania, dated January 8, 2025: “Late last week, President Joe Biden signed into law legislation that will tackle the federal government’s inefficient use of its office space, get federal workers back in the office, and cut costs. The bill requires the GSA and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to implement a standard methodology of measuring occupancy and utilization of public buildings, and directs the consolidation and sale of underused space.” Why wasn’t this mentioned in the article?